How would it be determined if it’s a story or an unpaid ad. The advertising budget for the Broadway production of Phantom of the Opera was zero, yet every newspaper, magazine and news show covered it. When 60 Minutes interviews a creative person right before their new “whatever” is coming out, is it an ad?
Lots of people say lazy, but often it’s a question of the bosses being extremely tight-fisted and not wanting to pay to have enough employees to actually go out and gather news.
There are also many, many more PR flacks than working reporters in North America, who do provide lots and lots of ‘material’.
But there really is no excuse for airing that kind of bumf. Every show producer should have access to national and international feeds with actual news items, even if they are brief.
They do, but viewers find them boring. There’s an old expression from the English press, “a death in Hackney is worth 10,000 in India.” On average, how many stories with actual national or international news do you see on your late local news? On the other hand, everyone knows Taco Bell, even the people who wouldn’t eat there on a dare.
“It’s just like the show before
And the news is just another show”
So the lines are getting progressively blurry between news and the commercials. Who’s going to enforce any rules about that? The FCC? Trump’s FCC?
When I was the main technical spokesperson for an expensive piece of software, I found that our PR people got me interviews and articles when we bought ads. It was not a direct purchase, but it was understood. This was in trade rags. I know there is supposed to be a wall between news and marketing for TV stations, but I suspect smaller ones suffering from lower ratings have that wall a bit permeable these days.
As the program director of a small public access cable TV station, I have to make this determination often. We are always glad to have useful material to fill time, but I couldn’t possibly watch every minute of every submitted show to be sure it wasn’t a disguised infomercial (we don’t air commercials as a policy, although announcements of concerts or non-profit events are fine).
Fortunately, I can usually guess what a show is from the first few minutes, and for reoccurring shows, once I have vetted one, I can usually assume the rest are similar.
So to answer your question, much like pornography, I know it when I see it.
On a daily basis, the St. Louis CBS(?) affiliate via which Mrs. Homie watches her morning news plays five-minute “interviews” with a representative from a local window installer. The “interviewer” asks the representative about what makes the installer’s product, installation, warranty, etc. better than that of his competition, and he’s more than happy to explain, all while the phone number and website appear on the screen. Nowhere are the words “Paid Promotion.”
I’m reminded of something I once heard during a sports broadcast. I’ll change the specifics since I don’t exactly remember, but it went something like this.
PLAY-BY-PLAY ANNOUNCER: LeBron just tossed another brick!
COLOR GUY: Speaking of bricks, did I mention that I just had my new brick home build by Acme Construction? I surely do appreciate their competitive rates and professionalism!
PBP GUY: You don’t say? I guess I’ll call Acme Construction at (314) 555-BRICK today!
Not once did they mention being paid by Acme Construction.
There’s also the use of advertising money to influence what is covered or not covered on the news.
An example I remember from growing up:
a local station had a morning newscast that was sponsored by an airline every day. Except that their contract specified that their ads were not to be used if the news show included any mention of an airplane crash. The station execs would have to scramble to sell that time to other advertisers, often at a discount, or fill it with promos for their own programs (unpaid).
While this didn’t lead to censorship of air crash stories; they always covered a major crash story. But it was noticeable that this station had much fewer follow-up stories on the crash than other stations. Subtle but effective way for this airline advertisements to influence the coverage of air crashes by this station. And completely legal.
Actually, it’s pretty standard for sponsors to pull their ads if there’s a major tragedy involving them. The ad money doesn’t go away, the ads just get rescheduled for another time.
Back when I was working in radio, a major amusement park had a customer killed when a ride failed. I saw the story cross the wire, showed my boss, and he immediately called the ad agency and asked if they wanted us to pull their ads. The ad agency said not to worry about it. My boss told them this was the kind of story that we (and a lot of other stations) felt like we had to run, and they said they were fine with that. We both walked away from the phone call shaking our heads. After all these years, I still think they were wrong.
There are all kinds of “2 minute video with no sound but the anchor talking over it” in a local newscast. In fact, you have described a newscast—anchors talking over video. It’s what they do. Why do you say it is beamed in by satellite? It could be about a local crime or event. And why do you say these are press releases? Who do you think writes the story about local politics and crime, some P.R. agent who then emails it to the TV station? Along with the video? I don’t get this.
This is a real news story from WPVI Philadelphia’s 6ABC Action News that is now running as a commercial on YouTube. It runs as a commercial before about half the videos I want to watch.
The first time I saw it, I thought it was one of those fake newscasts. But, no, it features real reporters from the television station and proudly displays the 6ABC Action News logo.
Yup, that’s pretty shady too, I suppose you could say it at least has a little shopping cart logo (mine was just mixed in with the regular news), but that’s still a weak defense.
I hope everyone in this thread has seen the classic Oscar-winning film “Network”…? To call it “prescient” is a radical understatement.
It was just a story right in the midst of the 6 p.m. local news, weather, and local sports. “Reported” by the anchor and reporter like any other news story.
Interesting! I suppose it is pretty entertaining, even if it’s not for your own government.
Yeah, I would have been a lot less surprised to see it on something like that. This was on the half hour evening local news telecast, right in between crime stories, weather, etc.
how I found about the video press releases is someone sent one over that was pretty much an ad for some new health “discovery” and a few big city local channels talked it up and the product took off and was later to be found to be a bunch of woo ………
On Monday I put, somewhere between 9 or 12 international stories into my hour-long noon broadcast.
This would not fly anywhere I’ve worked. Our union would be up in arms, we’d have press council complaints if it actually aired, and worse.
There’s an article in today’s Washington Post on this topic. Short version: yes, stations are supposed to be transparent about running paid content, but it appears that some stations are playing fast and loose with the rules about this.
Interesting–thanks, kenobi!
You live in North Texas- you forgot the 20% of the newscast dedicated to the Cowboys, even when it’s the most off-season part of the off-season (like right now). We’ll hear about Dak Prescott’s favorite brand of TP, or the legal minutiae of a court case involving some guy who hasn’t even played for the Cowboys in seven seasons (yes, there was a story about Josh Brent in the past few months)
Then there’s the normal sportscast that’s half as long, about all the other sports combined.
I swear Jerry Jones pays the news stations for coverage.
A good rule of thumb is: if the program is produced by a network’s “News Division,” don’t bother with it. Just go buy some soap (or a car, or incontinence supplies, or a reverse mortgage) and cut out the middleman.
There was a classic one here in Australia a few years ago.
TV News runs usual scare story ‘Government may increase taxes on cigarettes’. Based on some unknown ‘Financial Expert’ saying ‘Government will look at all ways of raising taxes etc’. Cut to vox pops of Man In Street saying ‘Oh, I might have to give up’ etc. Total nothing story.
At end of item - switch to ad break.
First ad - A stop smoking ad (might have been patches or whatever).
Last ad in break - same company with same patches ad.
Who puts anti-smoking ads in the News?