What's Up With Those AFN "Infomercials?"
Story by George A. Smith, AFN Europe
When you're in the States you grab a drink or add to the water table during commercials. But a change comes over you after you've been stationed awhile in Europe. You actually start to miss the commercials, especially the Super Bowl mix of talking animals, strutting swim suit models and wacky web site guys.
So why does the American Forces Network Europe (AFNE) air "infomercials" from commanders, on-base activities and chaplains instead of entertaining snippets from Clydesdales and chip-munchers? AFN Europe's 33rd Commander, COL Scott Malcom, says, "If AFN aired stateside commercials, we'd have to pay for the entertainment programming along with them, and we simply cannot afford to do that. As it stands now, we get America's highest-rated shows like CSI and American Idol for little or no cost because we are a service oriented, not-for-profit government entity. Another aspect of being a government entity is that we have a mission, and ours is to provide command information to our audience."
Command information is news, features and short messages (spots) of interest to people in the military, civilian employees and their families DOD-wide. It includes news and updates about the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps coming from the States, messages from the senior commanders in Europe and the latest happenings on your military installation.
Sometimes the command information might look similar to commercials in the States, such as the messages informing people of upcoming University of Maryland, Embry Riddle or Central Texas College courses.
There's a good reason why AFN airs messages about some colleges, but not others. AFNE's Chief of Command Information, Dan Robinson says, "AFN Europe airs spots for command sponsored activities and events, and we are authorized by DoD regulation to mention commercial name (s) associated with these command sponsored activities and events."
Some viewers wonder why we run inspirational messages from chaplains at all. The "legal" answer is because the constitution and a provision to the U.S. Constitution's 1st Amendment allow it. But just as importantly, commanders see a need for it. General George C. Marshall said, "The Soldier's heart, the Soldier's spirit, and the Soldier's soul are everything. Unless the Soldier's soul sustains him, he cannot be relied on and will fail himself, his commander and his country in the end."
The man you often seen giving those messages on AFN, Chaplain (Major) Tom Cox, feels strongly about both the need for the broadcast ministry and military chaplains when he says, "Spiritual Fitness is a combat multiplier and a life enhancer." Cox and other chaplains create brief non-denominational inspirational messages. Many are trained as marriage counselors and offer advice on dealing with deployments, and building a better marriage.
While some people question AFN's chaplaincy messages, still more write in about the quantity and quality of AFN spots. People complain about messages repeating too often, audio running too high, military actors out of regulation, messages produced in an amateurish way or spots airing for a long time.
Currently, Paul Waldrop, the man in charge of the DOD-level TV spots has about 1,200 spots in his inventory. But he notes the number is "always in flux" as they add and delete spots. Waldrop's team selects spot topics based on input from the military services, audience email feedback and comments, inventory replenishment and directed topics from DOD leadership.
At the Europe level, Robinson also gets topics from the Europe-level leadership and audience. He has already taken steps to get rid of the really old spots. "I purged our TV spot inventory of older productions to just under 300 spots. Currently, about a dozen new ones are in production," he says.
A dozen spots may not sound like a lot. But the answer is that AFN, unlike most commercial TV stations, has very few people dedicated solely to producing TV messages. Ten years ago the command information section at AFN Europe was 16 people. Today, Robinson, the chief, is also the chief producer. Other people in the network production center produce spots when time allows. That's because their primary duty is producing the network TV newscast, DJ shows, TV news stories and radio news.
The situation at local stations, such as AFN Heidelberg, is similar. "We don't have anyone dedicated to producing just TV spots," says MSG Matt Howard. "What we do is assign a minimum of one spot to every producer each month." Adding to the challenge is Howard's manpower shortage. He has four producers. His manning document calls for nine.
AFNS Operations Manager Bill Hickman says his stations in Italy also don't have dedicated TV spot producers. "We spread spot production around the staff. Everybody gets a shot at producing TV spots."
AFN Europe's upgrade to digital video technology has helped stations produce higher quantity and quality spots, but stations lose that advantage once manning drops.
Another factor that impacts the variety of command information airing on AFN is the channel you watch. For example, if you tune in decoder channels 11-20, you'll see a mix of base (your local station), Europe (AFNE) and DOD (AFRTS) level command information. But if you watch other channels via your decoder, for example AFN Atlantic Prime on decoder channel 2, you'll see a university of Maryland spot, a European-theater level announcement, twice as often, because it's not covered up by local station spots.
One of the best ways AFN can improve our command information messages is through you. When you see a command information message that doesn't look good, airs too often or has some other flaw, call the nearest AFN station and let them know. Of course don't hesitate to call if you see something you like!
And oh, once you rotate back to the States, don't be surprised if you find yourself "missing" the AFN "infomercials." Every week the network gets requests from people for copies, including some requests for AFN "infomercials" from people who served in Europe as long as 30 years ago!