It’s not a paid ‘tout’. It’s their (mistaken) attempt to be entertaining, at the same time as delivering the news. That crept into local television news in the 70’s, and hasn’t changed.
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Maybe WXYZ is just telling its viewers “the news they want to hear” rather what “they need to know”? That’s what’s best for ratings.
Lottery ticket sales are strongest in the poorest neighborhoods.
intercst
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Does that include touting every new product Apple introduces? Does that include the visits to the line outside of Best Buy on the eve of “Black Friday” to talk to the people camping out, and touting the store’s door busters? Every fall, all the local stations do “remotes” from cider mills, showing what the mill offers, what it’s hours are, and where it is located.
Several years ago, one of the local “news” reports had a piece about some Doctor in the area with some sort of diagnostic equipment. The video piece they ran had the Doc talking about it, a “testimonial” by a guy who said he had felt perfectly fine, but his wife insisted he go to this Doc and have this test. Sure enough, the test revealed he was sick. He’s all better now, but said seeing this doc and having that test saved his life. After the “report” they cut back to the “news” anchors at the desk, who said “you’re insurance probably will not pay for it, but it’s really important that everyone have this test. And the only person in the area who can do it is this Doc”, then they gave the address and phone number of his office.
Channel 4 seems to have the contract to tout the Lions this year. They weren’t even coy about it anymore, touting the “Lions hype train”, as they cheerlead, every day.
Last October, one of the “news” anchors on channel 4 (Graham Media Group) was introducing a “report” and said “now, advertising in the news”. He is still employed at that station, but I would not be surprised if he got a disciplinary write up for admitting they were running advertising as “news”.
Here is a sample of the blather about the Lions media “hype train”, from the beginning of the season. Surprisingly, as the Lions have zukked for, oh, about 20-30 years, they have had a winning season this year. Ownership immediately jumped on the winning record to jack ticket prices over 60%. They are probably demanding a lot more for TV coverage. The question that remains is: will the owners keep the team competitive, or will they follow the Marlins’ playbook, and, after jacking ticket and TV prices up, a lot, trade away all the talent, so they have low payroll, along with high revenue, and stuff their pockets full of cash, while fielding a rotten team. Or are they putting lipstick on the team, to sell it?
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Ms. Golfer’s idea of entertainment is how many times she can change the channel to QVC when I happen to doze off.
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@flyerboys if you are going to be tuning in to Korean TV, don’t miss the best of them all: “Chuno, or Slave Catchers,” starring the incredible Jang Hyuk with an award-winning performance that simply can’t be matched. But the second leading man (and the entire superb cast) come close.
Must see.
Wendy
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Thnx! bobobobobo.
d fb
This is the molding of three stories so common in life.
1 the grass is always greener
2 not understanding that work is a reward
3 guys getting a sexually aroused when violence is completely unrealistic
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Does it all day long on its Facebook page very blatantly with cheese pieces.
OK, I’m going to call this out. Making the accusation is easy. How about some proof?
Please give me 3 such pieces in the past week, and I’ll cede one about Taylor Swift, who is actually newsworthy, given her unlikely status as the largest musical superstar on the planet.
Thanks.
There are paragraphs above each of these product ads in the Facebook page c’mon and then the cheesy articles to sell. Paid for ads masquerading probably in online articles that would never appear in the newspaper.
28 minutes ago on FB Times page
About an hour ago
2 hours ago
Where is the $50 you bet me Goof? LOL
Good thing I do not gamble.
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Wow. Those are not “ads”. They are product reviews which the editors of WireCutter think will interest readers. The owners of those products do not pay the NYT for placement, indeed, there is no way you can shoehorn your product into one of those except … by being a good product. There is no “product placement”, aka the movies, not any payment to the publisher (aka, advertising.)
You guys seem to think that any mention of any commercial company constitutes “advertising.” Is it advertising when NBC News announces “A Delta airlines jet went down in the Atlantic, killing 127”? I think not. Some stories are of such wide interest that news organizations cover them because people are interested in them: new Apple products. Taylor Swift tour. Tesla factory opening. What happens to Amazon returns.
By FCC law, if money changes hands, it must be disclosed to the viewer unless it is so obviously “a commercial” that disclosure is unnecessary. People skirt this all the time as when a film star goes on a talk show to plug his new film. But (and this is key) he is not paying to do so; it’s a symbiotic relationship. The talk show gets a big film star (to help ratings) and the film star gets an audience to try to interest them in his movie.
When money changes hands , that’s an ad. “The following is a paid presentation by GoldTraders of America”. That’s a program length ad. Please stop trying to make this into something it’s not. I’m cynical sometimes too, but you guys are taking to absurd heights, nearly the same as the conspiracy guys with the child abduction stuff in the basement of the pizza shop.
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I read an article about the workings of “The Tonight Show”, decades ago. There was a question about if the guests are paid. The answer was guests were paid $300 (remember, this was some 40-50 years ago), to show up and talk for a few minutes, unless they were there to promote something, in which case, their appearance was uncompensated. So when Calvin Trillin or Gore Vidal was on, to express their opinion about something, they were paid. When someone was on to plug their new movie, they were not paid. In recent years, the ratio of plugs to interesting people has shifted way in favor of plugs. I have noticed that, when a new film comes out, Fallon will have a different member of the cast of that same film on several nights in a row, each showing a clip, and touting the film. At one point, I even saw an ad for the show, with Fallon openly announcing they would be having several cast members of a new film on over the week, each touting the same film,
One of the last nights that Carson was running the “Tonight Show” he did a “questions from the audience” piece. One question was what was the worst interview he ever did. When the NBC series “BJ And The Bear” was suffering in the ratings, the producers tried to make it into a “jiggle show” by introducing the “seven lady truckers”. I was watching that night. Due to the number of women, they had chairs set up on the stage to accommodate all seven of them, plus Carson. They had been hired for the job for their looks, and ability to jiggle, not because they were Rhodes Scholars. I understand why Carson said that was his worst interview ever, because trying to get an interesting conversation out of that gaggle of b!wmbos was impossible. But he had to do it, because it was plugging an NBC show.
Steve
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Here’s what WireCutter itself says
WIreCutter: We earn money through subscriptions and various affiliate marketing programs. That means we may get paid commissions on products purchased through our links to retailer sites.
So they do get a cut of the purchases they recommend. They justify this arrangement by saying
WireCutter: If a reader returns their purchase because they’re dissatisfied or the recommendation is bad, we make no affiliate commission. We think that’s a pretty fair system that keeps us committed to serving our readers first. And of course, the decisions we make regarding the products we feature on our site are always driven by editorial and product testing standards, not by affiliate deals or advertising relationships.
There’s a lot of shades of gray in that policy. Still, in my experience, WireCutter is one of the most reliable recommendation sites I use.
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Years ago, 1972 or 73, I saw a full page “article” in Motor Trend magazine, warning about the “dangers” of unleaded gas. Nowhere was there a note that it was advertising. It looked like another page of editorial content…except, the typeface was slightly different from the actual MT editorial content. It had to be an ad from the Ethyl company, or a gasoline company.
Steve
Sorry, you have warped your memory to your own convenience. People who are in the business below to a union, usually AFTRA or SAG. If they appear on (camera on) television they must be paid, different rates according to what type of program it is: talk show, soap opera, dramatic series, and so on (generally, but not always defined by day part). A casual guest need not be paid, the union has exceptions for this. When I had to pay attention to such things, a “guest” was allowed to make 5 appearances before they were required to join the union, after which time they had to be paid, by union contract. (News program interviews were exempt, talk show interviews of the same subject were not.) The amount was deminimus, it was there to keep management from stuffing tv shows with unpaid actors who were there just for the thrill of saying “Hey mom, I’m on TV!”
There is no question that the networks use their talk shows - to a point - to promote their shows. Sometimes other things too. The first program Walt Disney produced on a continuing basis for ABC was called “Disneyland”, and it premiered before the park existed and was a continuing promotion for an enterprise in which ABC had a minority interest (a few hundred thousand dollars, iIRC. They did it because it’s the only way Disney would produce for them, and they were hungry for product; the major studios wouldn’t have anything to do with TV and NBC and CBS had snapped up the producers that would.) Disney needed the money and the credibility to get the banks to loan more. One hand washes the other. Anyway, I’ll concede that could fairly be called “advertising”, also it was low key as there was nothing the public could buy, at least at that point.
Fallon (and others) sometimes do a theme week, and I have seen them elsewhere, and even for movies or highly rated sitcoms in which that network has no interest, it’s done because it’s a ratings stunt (successful or otherwise). There is no question that certain guests can goose the ratings, and TV talk show producers understand this and try to make use of it as best they can. I happily stipulate that it’s not always successful, not always a good idea, but then not every car made is a winner and there are lots of crummy potato chip varieties as well.
Words have meaning. None of your examples indicate “paid for”.
I figure the answers on Quora are as trustworthy as anyone else’s who is not cutting paychecks or negotiating contracts for the “Tonight Show”. “Celebrity” guests on the “Tonight Show”, according to answers on Quora, receive “scale”, which, years ago, was indeed $300-$400, unless they are there to plug something, in which case, the publicity is their compensation.
Steve
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I tried to explain. That’s ENTIRELY WRONG. There is no such thing as “the publicity is their compensation.” There is a union. The Union dictates “you may not appear on network television without being a member of the union”, with certain limited exceptions.
There is minimum union scale pay. Virtually everyone with the exception of one-time people who appear (i.e. “Stupid Pet Tricks”) MUST GET PAID.
Absolutely most of the time. It is not serendipity. You are naive. I do not care if the last 80 years of your life you were in the business.
Pay for advert space and get a story for free. Very old practice. Stop kidding us otherwise.
You might as well be saying Kraft Foods does not pay for shelf space at the supermarket. You are making things up in a business you are claiming FULL knowledge of newsprint and TV time.
I think you have zero idea.
I have seen it done locally. That is different than the Times. But you think Wire Cutter was just around discussing things for no reason at all? Just to help the readers. BS.
Hold the Press! Better yet hold your Cookies!
You can write your mea culpa now.
Goofy you (edit someone did not like my mild word for your problem) Amazon and others online run affiliate marketing programs.
Wirecutter was founded in September 2011 and acquired by The New York Times Company in October 2016. We earn money through subscriptions and various affiliate marketing programs .