CBS: Television You Can Feel

Television You Can Feel was a slogan used on the CBS television network for the 1988-89 season. This campaign immediately replaced the Spirit-themed image campaigns of the previous two seasons. At this time, CBS began its ratings free fall, the deepest in the network's history; the slump wouldn't end entirely until 1995. In the meantime, the Television You Can Feel campaign introduced a more sensual, new-age image to the network through distinguished, advanced-looking computer graphics and soothing music.

The campaign was alternately known as TV You Can Feel and You Can Feel It On CBS. The lyrics in the jingle only reference the alternate title of the campaign,You Can Feel It On CBS. However, the network officially marketed it as Television You Can Feel.

Campaign

The full length promo for Television You Can Feel was 1:30 minutes long, only slightly shorter than the ones produced by the major networks up to that time. However, another commonly circulated one was just under a minute long, with a special concept designed for network affiliate use. The official full length promo sets the tone, with a statement at the beginning over the top of a blue CGI sphere: "A Show of Emotion". This proceeds with a stunning clip montage of CBS programs, both returning and brand new (for the fall 1988 schedule), with characters performing actions that illustrated these different emotions: sadness, joy, anger, victory, defeat, love, revenge, etc. As a transition from one series of scenes to the next, lavish 3D CGI effects appear in-between. Some of these display various shapes and objects traveling or bouncing around, while others show a different angled view of a blue and red sphere, with various animated objects travelling around it. This is meant to symbolize the "feeling" of the network's image as implied by the slogan, show scenes, and theme lyrics. At the end of this promo, the final scene is enveloped by the sphere, which reveals itself as the official logo/symbol of the campaign. The sphere turns to the middle of a shiny blue backdrop, in which it then blossoms into the shape of the CBS eye. Under this view, the slogan Television You Can Feel appears in a white, bold capital font.

The campaign theme/jingle features a main male vocalist and a female vocalist who switches from background vocals to duets and back with the main singer. The theme begins with a gentle acoustic guitar sound, to enhance the most touching and sentimental scenes of the promo. The song then builds up with a heavier beat until it reaches a cresendo of full orchestration, where very dramatic action scenes come in (such as Ken Wahl in the middle of a drive-by mafia shootout on Wiseguy). The theme continues this way until the end, and culminates with an iconic, 7-note jingle just as the CBS eye/sphere logo comes into play.

The shorter variant begins with a cityscape skyline at sunrise, which segues into clips of characters from the current CBS shows surrounded by blue, red, or purple CGI outlines; most form a circle and move around each clip. A number of clips in the first portion show the leads from the primetime soaps (Dallas, Knots Landing, etc.) making love. In the middle of the promo, a nearly-full view of the sphere is seen while three video insets of show clips are seen in front of it (for the record, they are Edward Woodward of The Equalizer, a scene from Beauty and the Beast, and an explosion scene from Tour of Duty). At the very end, the sphere turns to the middle of a shiny blue backdrop, in which it then blossoms into the shape of the CBS eye. The name of this "eye" was "The Frog's Eye," as coined by CBS executives. In the dead center of the eye, behind the "CBS" lettering, a remnance of the sphere can still be seen.

Other elements of the Television You Can Feel campaign included special show promos which featured filmed pieces with the creators of current CBS shows. The creators would be seen in an office or home study talking directly to the camera about their show, its meaning, and some inside perspective on their main characters. Among the creators to show up was veteran producer Stephen J. Cannell, in a promo for Wiseguy. Another aspect of the campaign was a special tagline used to promote the fall premieres for all primetime shows: amid multi-colored overlapping rectangles, which tied in with that year's color scheme, appeared the line Are You Ready? (with the accompanying lyrics "Are you ready..for CBS"). This was a precursor to the slogan of next year's campaign, Get Ready for CBS.

For the network bumpers, a short, instrumental musical backing of the last few notes of the jingle, played while the affiliate displayed their ID below the CBS eye. (In previous seasons, the musical backing would usually have the slogan lyrics sung for ID bumpers.)

The shorter promo variant was produced in a manner so that the affiliates could insert station talent and program clips seamlessly in between network shots. A generic copy of this Television You Can Feel promo, as seen online at such sites as 80sTVThemes.com and also available on YouTube, has black spots in between network clips, where the affiliates would place their footage.

Localized versions:

*WBAL-TV Baltimore: "You Can Feel It On 11"
*KDKA-TV Pittsburgh: "You can Feel It On TV-2"

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