Listeners beware. Especially those of you who are unashamed Archers addicts. The antics of the denizens of Ambridge might seem like casual, everyday stuff, but they’ve probably been carefully designed to indoctrinate us with the ‘right’ kind of behaviour. That’s if a two-part documentary on the World Service, hosted by none other than Debbie Archer (alias Tamsin Greig), is to be believed.
Soap Operas: Art Imitating Life took us back to those first radio serials in America, funded in the 1930s by the big soap manufacturers to market their latest products. Yes, soap operas are so-called because they were originally given the means to go viral by firms like Colgate-Palmolive. We might think that product placement is a post-recession invention by corporations desperate to find new ways to flog their products. Not a bit of it. Back in 1931 SuperSuds funded Clara, Lu and Em, the first daytime daily drama, produced and aired by Chicago’s WGN-AM station.
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