Televised
Banking
I didn’t notice the television that is positioned as the center of the banking experience inside the Franklin Street branch of First Union National bank of North Carolina until a few months ago. I guess I should amend that statement, I didn’t question its presence or note that having a giant screen television mounted into the wall of my banking branch might be something out of the ordinary. For almost a year, I had simply watched it blithely while waiting for the next available teller or directed my friends to sit down and watch TV while I finished my banking transactions. Then I read Marsha Kinder’s interesting but somewhat esoteric book, Playing with Power, which explores how the connections between children’s television, video games, toys, movies, and commercials create incredibly insatiable consumers. It wasn’t the kid stuff that grabbed me though, it was Kinder’s careful tracing of the way television has moved from the private into public sphere. So one day, I walked into my bank and thought, “What the hell is a television doing in my BANK?”
The Panasonic giant-screened TV is positioned at about five feet from the floor and the largest amount of floor space in the bank is dedicated to four deep cushioned armchairs arranged in a semicircle directly in front of the screen. There is a coffee table set in the middle of the semicircle that just begs to have feet propped upon it for comfortable viewing. Banking customers and tellers have no control over the shows that they are watching or the volume of the set. It is the bank manager who retains the remote control at First Union and there is no way to change channels manually on the television itself.
The windows of the bank are tinted so passersby can not sneak a peak at the television. A large “greeting desk” sits squarely in the entrance way of the bank and is backed by a partition that reaches to the ceiling. This blocks the view of the television without obscuring the tellers or the bank manager’s desk. I have never seen anyone manning this “greeting desk” so its only function has become a sort of shield to keep the television a secret from any casual drop-ins. Actually, it is difficult and uncomfortable to watch the television while standing in line for a teller. Customers either have to turn their bodies around or really twist their necks to see the screen from any place in the bank except while sitting in the viewing circle chairs.
After I started thinking about the TV in my bank, I decided to conduct a little observational experiment.
I went to the bank four (4) times at different times of the day to observe and note the programs that were playing, the volume level of the set, the attention that tellers and customers paid to the television set, and what types of people chose to site down and watch the television. Each trip lasted about 15 minutes.
I also visited two First Union branches in Raleigh, and one in the Research Triangle Park to see if they had televisions. I wanted to compare the layout of the banks and the viewing habits of customers but found that the Chapel Branch is the only First Union branch in the Triangle with a television set.
Daily Observations
1:00 p.m. Wednesday
- January 29, 1997
Program: Days of Your Lives was beginning (an NBC daytime
soap opera).
Volume: Moderate
Tellers: One teller was at her station but her window
remained closed which she watched the television set. The other was waiting on customers and paid little to no attention
to the set, only looking toward it when she was between customers.
Customers: Two men in line for tellers. One did not look at the television, the other
glanced over at it occasionally while waiting for the teller.
Seated: Two young women dressed in sorority (Delta
Delta Delta) sweat shirts, UNC baseball caps, and book bags sat in armchairs
watching the television and talking about the plot of the show. I asked them if they were First Union customers
and they said yes. I told them I was
observing the television and its viewers at this bank and asked if I could
use their names. They declined but said they would answer a couple questions.
I asked if they always sat down to watch TV when they came in to do
their banking and they said no. They usually only watched while they were
standing in line or if they had a few minutes to waste in between classes.
I asked if they banked here because of the television. They both said no; that they banked here because it was the only
bank convenient to campus. I asked
what they thought about the fact that they had no choice in their viewing
material or the volume on the set. They both said they hadn’t really noticed
and that they didn’t really care.
9:00 am. Thursday –
January 30, 1997
Program: CNN morning news
Volume: Turned Off
Tellers: Three tellers were waiting on customers.
None watched the television.
Customers: Two customers, a man and woman both in their
late 30s to early 40s, stood in line but were turned completely around to
face the screen and watch the television although the sound was turned off.
Seated: One young child (3- or 4-years-old) who was
playing with toys and not watching the screen.
3:30 p.m. Friday –
January 31, 1997
Television was
turned off.
Program: NA
Volume: NA
Tellers: None watching the screen. None could explain why the set was turned off.
Customers: Only one older man (60- to 70-years-old) stood at the tellers’ desk and he was having
a discussion with the teller and not watching the television.
Seated: Companion or wife of the man in line. I explained my project and she said she didn’t
want to answer any questions but as I explained the project she looked around
the bank, then at the TV, and said – “I didn’t even notice a television in
here.”
4:30 p.m. Monday -
February 3, 1997
Program: Oprah Winfrey
Volume: High
Tellers: Two watching the show with their stations closed.
One taking customers but watching the screen a lot – looking up every
few seconds.
Customers: One person sitting at the bank manager’s desk
waiting for service. Four people standing
in line. Two were watching the tellers
watching television, obviously angry and getting impatient. One person was turned around in line to watch
the show. The person being waited
on was looking back and forth from the teller to the TV and seemed to be enjoying
the show rather than being annoyed with the teller’s obvious attention to
the show.
Seated: Two male UNC Students and one homeless person
who was asked to leave almost immediately upon sitting down to watch the television.
The students were very interested in the show and said that they came
to do banking but wanted to wait until the line was shorter.
I asked if they usually sat down to watch TV when they did their banking. One of the men said that he liked to sit down
and watch because it didn’t hurt his neck as much as when he tried to watch
while standing in line. The other
said that this was the first time he had sat down to watch the TV in the bank
but that he thought it was “cool” and “more personal” than being in a bank
that didn’t have a television. I asked
if they banked here specifically because there was a television. Both said no but one added that he thought
the television was an “added bonus.” I
asked what they thought about the fact that they had no control over the programming
or volume. One said that as long as
they showed the ACC tournament games (which they did) he was fine with that.
The other said that he hadn’t really thought of that and that he would
like it if they had a controller available for customers.
Now, I never intended this to be some blown out scientific study or anti-TV rant. This began simply enough but it has been pointed out to me that the introduction of television into the home was discussed and argued about more than any other technological advancement to enter the living space. Nothing similar surrounded the entrance of the radio, home computer, video games, or VCR. And the extent to which it was argued that these contraptions would influence, disrupt, destroy or bring together families and people in the home never came close to the debates surrounding the possible affects of television. Funny now that it is close to impossible to imagine home as a place without television and that they indeed have invaded every space in the home.
Clearly, TV is not just for the living room anymore. In Playing With Power, Kinder claims that the widespread introduction into the home since the 1950s has enabled the television set to function both as social and cultural mirror and as the most powerful ideological state apparatus (a social apparatus that transmits and reproduces the dominant ideology, primarily through widely accepted cultural practices, such as religion, education and the arts). In fact, television has become so situated in our culture that it is becoming more and more impossible to imagine oneself having to deal with other people, inside and outside of the home, without television. In banks, health clubs, grocery stores, Laundromats, and restaurants, television brings us that comfortable noise that allows us to focus on the television, rather than other people, in a blissfully isolated state of consciousness. In the brief “field work” that I did here, it became very evident to me that the movement of television into public spaces hasn’t been examined in quite the same critically conscious way as was its placement in private spaces. No one thought it was strange that there was a TV in their bank. No one questioned the fact that the tellers are counting money and watching TV at the same time. The TV and its noise and pictures definitely distracted me from the service I’ve been receiving at First Union and I believe that I can claim the same for the majority of other customers I observed during this brief period.
When
you are watching TV, it’s harder to make yourself check that account number
on your deposit ticket. It is easier to forget to recount the wad of
cash the teller handed you when Oprah is wailing in your ear about whether
wearing a thong for a day will make you a sexier woman. Yes, the TV does pull students into the bank.
Maybe it makes them feel more comfortable and soothes that homesick
ache that takes over every now and then.
Maybe walking into a pedestrian oriented bank (the Franklin Street
branch has no drive-thru window ) seems more personal than dealing with an
ATM machine or electronic transfers for some.
Personally, I’ve realized that I don’t need or want a television in
my bank. I’m taking my pennies elsewhere.
Lisa C. Hyatt