P&G's Newest Production

On Friday, April 16, 2010, NBC aired the first co-production of Walmart and Procter & Gamble Productions called Secrets of the Mountain. In promoting this movie, a bomb was dropped, which is what took so long for me to write about this situation. Thanks go to welovesoaps.net for letting everyone know about this news.

On April 15th, Cincinnati.com posted an interesting interview where P&G Global Marketing Officer Marc Pritchard stated that soaps have “run their course.” Alright hold up a second and we are supposed to believe that they were seriously shopping around Guiding Light and As the World Turns. At first I was horrified by this development, but finally someone at P&G who would be an obvious mouthpiece for the company shares his opinion. It makes me angry and sad, that people were being told what they wanted to hear instead of the truth. If they wanted to get out of soap operas tell us, but acting like the victim of CBS to keep you from dealing with irate viewers is not treating people with respect.

Once I got past those emotions, I tried to figure out why P&G would want to get back into the television movie business. Movies on television have been a staple on prime time television for many years, but they have lost their luster. The traditional big three networks (CBS, NBC and ABC) used to each have a Sunday night movie, and usually at least one other night during the week in which either theatrical or original films were aired. Now other than holidays where perennials such as The Sound of Music and The Ten Commandments air and the occasional Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation on CBS, movies (whether made for the large screen or the television one) on these channels have all but disappeared. A special two-hour episode of Brothers and Sisters is not a true television movie even if it was advertised as such. The primary home of movies is no longer the broadcast stations.

Television movie nights used to be a vital part of the prime time schedule, though it has been greatly ignored for years. These along with the miniseries went out of fashion in the later part of the 1980s even if they continued into the 1990s. Reality shows, video releases and the expansion of satellite and cable subscribers hastened their end on broadcast/network television. They air on stations like HBO, AMC, Lifetime, ABCFamily, Hallmark, Disney, SyFy and many others. An indication of this shift can be seen if one looks at the Emmy nominees and winners for these categories. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the miniseries was a water cooler event. “Roots”, the most famous of the miniseries, was one of the highest rated non-sports programs of the 20th Century. As time went on, these typically 10-20 hour epic stories, which aired within a week or two stopped being a ratings bonanza, and the price tags were high.

Unlike many telefilms that were done cheaply, the miniseries was expensive. Many were based on famous novels, boasted large casts and were filmed in exotic locations. The movie of the week MOTW genre may also have started to wane as while they tended to be cheaper than mini-series reality shows were even less money. Why hire a cast and crew, when you don’t have to, and a MOTW is a onetime thing, so even if the ratings are good, it won’t help long term programming decisions.

During the movie slots, they also aired big screen movies. These airings on television became less popular due to VCRs in the 1980s. Why wait months or even a year to watch something when you can go to the video store and rent it today. Also on video there weren’t any edits for content. The networks had to pay a lot of money to rebroadcast these films, but if people were getting to see them elsewhere it wasn’t worth it.

Other than the family telefilms that Walmart and P&G are now involved with, one particular kind was directed specifically to a female audience. This genre of MOTW was the woman in jeopardy. These telefilms starred a familiar actress, who had to struggle and usually came out at the end a better person. Some were original stories and others were based on real life. Sometimes the actresses were television series stars, and many times they were on a show that aired on that network. These movies still exist, but now make their home on channels like Lifetime or Lifetime Movie Network. They are a close cousin in some ways to soap operas as many used to be cast with daytime alums in supporting roles.

The arguably the most well known television movie franchise would be The Wonderful World of Disney (which had different names through the years). That show was a phenomenon, which created many marketing opportunities for the house of mouse. From the shows describing Disneyland and later Disney World, to the one time movie, which became a movie series during that program, spawned a hit song, and a fashion trend (the coonskin cap)—Davey Crockett.

Over the years, The Wonderful World of Disney ceased to exist, and original Disney flicks appeared on the Disney Channel instead. While ABC will occasionally air a theatrical Disney movie, any new Disney productions tend to air on the Disney Channel. A new television movie would appear a few times a year; sometimes these were based around holidays, young adult or children’s books, or were oversized episodes of their original series.

The most famous television movie in recent years aired on The Disney Channel. It was a musical targeted to kids called High School Musical. This telefilm became a marketing bonanza. Books, clothing, soundtracks, you name it, Disney made it. The stars of the film became famous; the second one aired on Disney Channel, and the third was made for theatrical release. It wouldn’t surprise me at all that P&G thought we want something like that. It would be a boon to their business to create such a franchise.

This leads me back to perhaps why “The Secrets of the Mountain” was made. I watched it while catching up with other programs saved on my DVR. It was harmless, and humorously to me American Idol judge Randy Jackson was involved with the music. Considering that credit, I was amazed they did not make a bigger deal about the soundtrack, and downloading the music off of an official website. Throughout the program they had special advertisements focusing on going to Walmart to buy P&G products like Duracell batteries. There was trivia within the commercial time that tied into the items. One of the questions asked, which I am paraphrasing was while not creating the technology of a battery this person came up with its name. The answer was Benjamin Franklin. Another question was about a ten year old suggesting to this man to grow a beard and the answer was Abraham Lincoln. I am not sure what P&G product matched with that question. Another was a general question about how long does the average man spend on the toilet in his life and the answer was three years. They had an ad for Charmin to go along with that factoid. The trivia was a way to engage the audience to watch the advertisements shown during the program. At the end of the movie, it was mentioned that you can purchase your very own copy exclusively at Walmart and gave a date for the next movie.

The basic story was about a female public defender (played by soap opera alum Paige Turco who may be known to soap viewers as the second Dinah on Guiding Light in the 1980s and All My Children’s Lainie), that helps the downtrodden which seemed to wreck her marriage as her former husband married another woman. Her character had three children: fraternal twins (male and female high school students named Jake and Jade IIRC) and a pre-teen girl. While her ex-husband is on his honeymoon, she gets a letter from someone wanting to purchase the mountain land she inherited from her deceased Uncle Henry.

The lawyer and her kids leave the suburbs and go upstate to a place that she once loved. She visits the attorney in town who is working to broker the deal. That role was played by Shawn Christian (currently Daniel on Days of Our Lives and years ago he originated the role of Mike Kasnoff on As the World Turns). Once she left the lawyer’s office, the family goes to her Uncle Henry’s house. Uncle Henry (Barry Bostwick) faked his death and allowed his niece to believe she watched him die. By talking together, they realize that evil British Nigel who tried to kill Uncle Henry was the buyer. The legend of the riches in the mountain was too much for him to bear, and he wasn’t willing to share so Henry had to get out of the way.

Mom, the kids, Uncle Henry and local lawyer got out and search for the entrance to the mountain. While the teens find a clue, it becomes dark so the search ends. In the middle of the night, the twins find a map, and sent out on foot in the dark. Their younger sister wakes up and gets their Mom, to try to find them. When everyone else was missing, Uncle Henry and local lawyer go looking for the rest of them. The twins figure out where they need to be to see the opening of the mountain with the use of geometry. That was the moment of “see kids this is why math is important”. The twins go in, but leave an X outside the opening. The younger sister and Mom find it, and enter the mountain too. Nigel tries to kill them. I missed Nigel’s fate in my rush, but it seemed like he stole the gold as the bid on the mountain was canceled, so the family could keep the land. All was well among the kids and mother now that they had a near death experience and Jake apologized to Jade for not standing up for her and allowing the cheerleaders to embarrass her in high school. Mom decided she wanted to move to the mountain with the kids, and all was well. The potential that Mom and Local Lawyer Guy would become involved was a possibility. The idea that the kids or their newly remarried father would have no issue in moving was not realistic, but the happy ending was more important.

That’s the basics of the telefilm. It wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t inspired to go to Walmart and buy myself a copy to watch again. The trivia portion advertising may have been the most effective part as I can see someone making the connection of trivia to product. For example since I learned from Duracell and Walmart about Benjamin Franklin, it must be a great product to pick up at that store along with the movie as they are both available in the audio visual section of my local store.

These movies though aren’t the first production that Walmart and P&G teamed up to do. I had no idea I was supporting P&G in any way when I started watching Gilmore Girls, Chuck or Friday Night Lights as they along with Walmart are have executives that co-chair the Alliance for Family Programming. I decided to watch these shows based on recommendations of friends and positive reviews in the press. I didn’t watch them because they were family friendly and depending on the age of children watching those shows may not be acceptable. Little kids may not be interested in the “romantic elements” of any of them, and some parents may not want to explain certain material.

We may never know if any of these movies helped Walmart and P&G sell more products. Supposedly the earlier people are influenced where to shop and what to buy, the better for those companies. Targeting television shows to the family audience gets the younger viewers who may be watching these commercials to become familiar with Walmart and P&G. This may be the key to why P&G has gotten back into this area of programming.

While it is doubtful that any will have the long-lasting impact of any of their daytime dramas, television is too lucrative of an avenue for P&G to abandon. Yesterday on the news, I heard P&G’s latest foray into advertising for women will be to team up with Oprah’s upcoming channel OWN. It will be interesting to see if they provide any original content outside of advertising for that station in the future though at this point it looks to be doubtful that it will be a soap opera.