Quote:
Product placement advertising makes its way into US news programmes
* Ed Pilkington in New York
* guardian.co.uk,
* Tuesday July 22, 2008
* Article history
The tentacle-like growth of clandestine advertising in American TV shows in the form of product placement has taken another controversial step with the introduction of McDonald's products into regional news programmes.
Several TV outlets have begun to sell the fast food giant the right to place cups of its iced coffee onto the desks of news anchors as they present morning current affairs shows.
Typical is Fox 5 News, an affiliate of Rupert Murdoch's Fox television network in Las Vegas.
Two cups of coffee, their cubes of ice glinting in the studio lights, now daily stand before the channel's morning presenters. The presenters conspicuously do not drink from the cups, which is just as well – the cups contain a bogus fluid and fake ice to prevent the cubes melting.
The New York Times has reported that similar deals to place McDonald's products in news shows are up and running in TV stations in Chicago, Seattle and New York.
Product placement has become a major branch of advertising in the US, creeping into all areas of entertainment television. Not only are products seen on camera, they also make their way into drama scripts such as a recent episode of the popular soap, OC, which had one character talk about having "a9.Com'd" a friend on the day the internet search company A9 launched a new Yellow Pages service of that name.
Advertising and broadcasting content have become increasingly blurred, with one new reality TV show, What I Like About You, pitting young women against each other to compete for an acting slot on a Herbal Essences advert.
The ad is then broadcast in a commercial break during the show.
But this is the first time that the form has percolated through to news broadcasting. Journalism ethics groups have protested that this is another erosion of standards.
"There has been in broadcast journalism certainly, and arguably in all journalism, a drifting away from the standards of straight news in the direction of entertainment," said Roy Peter Clark of the school for journalists at the Poynter Institute.
Fox 5 News has declined to reveal how much it is being paid by McDonald's for the six-month promotion. The station's news director Adam Bradshaw said that the product placement was only allowed in programmes that were appropriate, including later morning shows with an accent on lifestyle.
"I would not put it on a straight news cast like my 5 or 10pm news," he said.
The other potential difficulty with the new trend in TV news was conflict of interest. Bradshaw said that the McDonald's deal would in no way impede the station broadcasting negative news concerning the food chain.
"News is news. Sales is sales. If there's a story about McDonald's we would report on it just like anyone else."
He added that in those cases he would remove the coffee cups from the newscasters' desks, in a similar way to the pulling of adverts for airline companies during newscasts that report an air crash.
TV stations across America are suffering from a downtown in advertising, partly due to the challenge of the internet and partly to the more recent economic troubles of the country.
In a harsh financial climate, many are turning to new cash streams such as Fox 5 News's latest innovation.
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source:
Product placement advertising makes its way into US news programmes | World news | guardian.co.uk
threads about the---um----non-neutral character of televisual infotainment have been placed in a variety of spots around here, but if you think about it there's really nothing more political than the way information is mediated first, then shaped ideologically second.
up to this point, a typical television infotainment broadcast has featured a talking head intoning transitions between clips of "action" much of which, in the end, amounts to images of people you recognize entering or leaving buildings. these entrances are of course of great significance, being in the general vicinity of another sequence of activities, which the all important voice-over tells you about as the entrance or departure unfolds before your eyes. these sequences--talking head, clip, talking head--are sandwiched between blocks of advertisements. presumably there is a clear distinction between advertisement and infotainment. i think that distinction is an illusion and that is why i wholeheartedly endorse product placement on the desks behind which talking heads are positioned while they deliver the evening's infotainment.
i think this is great. it would of course be even better were the talking heads to wear hats bearing corporate logos or loudly colored t-shirts emblazoned with advertising materials, but the effect will be much the same.
everything about television news is an advertisement for the legitimacy of the existing order. that continuity is assured by the stream of images is an advertisement for the existing order. the only change here really is that the advertising status of television infotainment is now being made explicit.
what do you make of this?