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It is a real pleasure to see the Marketing Society devoting a learned

seminar this week to its product of the year - the Teletubbies. Even

though the programme has been something of a cult in Britain’s

universities, its intellectual importance is still not fully understood.

The marketing lessons learned represent the real importance of the

Teletubbies for the BBC. If the Corporation has cracked the marketing code

it would mean other children’s programmes could be sold around the world

just as successfully.

Just think of the money that would be available to buy sports rights to

stop people asking for refunds on their licence fee money. Maybe not

enough money to keep major sports like cricket, but better marketing of

programmes like Teletubbies abroad could at least help to secure darts and

snooker for public service broadcasting.

The next potential Marketing Society product of the year is already there

and waiting - The Week. How else can anyone cope with each week’s vast

mound of media while leaving enough time over for a takeaway curry. Or as

Dawn French put it: ’The Week is the ideal paper for those who are too

lazy or too busy. I am both and proud of it.’

There is, however, an obvious opportunity to extend the brand. For a lot

of people, 40 pages is simply too much and condensing articles to three or

four paragraphs still leaves an intimidating number of words.

There could be a great future for digest version of The Week which would

carry an absolute guarantee that no story would be more than one paragraph

long. The Express on Sunday has already shown the way with its ’one

question’ interview.

A new minimalist media version of The Week is also an urgent

necessity.

Far too much information is already being generated by the media press and

all the public relations outfits that feed it. Amid all the rubbish there

is a real danger of missing something completely vital that only comes to

light when the angle of stacked bumph on the desk becomes too acute to

defy gravity and there is a paper slide. Such a collapse has brought to

the top a most revealing press release from the Henley Centre which has

remained buried for nearly a month among all the other pieces of market

research about digital television proving that consumers are either deeply

confused or profoundly well informed about the subject, depending on who

was paying for the research.

Henley found that 26% of people are not interested in having more

television channels than currently available through network

television.

But it is the next paragraph that should be set in neon lights. ’When

provided with more detailed scenarios outlining differing types/numbers of

channels and subscription costs, those opting for the existing terrestrial

channels over the other offers doubled to 52%,’ it said. There are not

many products where the proportion of people who don’t want to buy doubles

when more information is provided. Never mind the Teletubbies or The Week,

if marketers can persuade viewers they want digital television after all,

the annual award should be theirs.

Raymond Snoddy is media editor of The Times.