WFLD: No Product Placement; But Special McDonalds Segments Disguised As News

In my blog from a few days ago, I complained about product placement coming to Fox32's newscasts, as it had to other Fox newscasts in other parts of the country. The New York Times reported this last week and named Chicago's WFLD as one of the stations accepting money from McDonalds for sneaking in its logo & products. In Sunday's column by the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal, WFLD's Vice President & General Manager, Pat Mullen, claimed the NY Times article was false and that there was no product placement happening at the station's newscasts. It turns out that Pat Mullen was both right and wrong. Today's AdAge reports that WFLD IS accepting money from McDonalds to sneak in the company's name & logo, disguised as news. (Phil Rosenthal also touched upon it in his column on Sunday.) The following comes from today's AdAge column:

Fox's WFLD in Chicago has a man-on-the-street segment in its "Good Day Chicago" program called "Breakfast Buzz," which is sponsored by McDonald's and shot in front of one of the chain's outlets, said Judson Beck, VP-general sales manager, Fox Chicago. The chain's logo is on screen during the segment and viewers are told afterwards that McDonald's was the sponsor, he said.

The rest of the AdAge column can be read that this link here: AdAge: Pay-for-Play Wends Its Way Into TV News. It's worth the look!

I stand behind my rants from last week. While I'm glad there is no product placement per se happening at Fox32, there is Pay-For-Play going on, which is almost as bad. There needs to be a clear separation between news & advertisements. Otherwise it cheapens the news as a whole and makes the viewer look elsewhere for "true" news. For this greedy advertising move meant to fool viewers, Fox32 should be ashamed of themselves.

Pick To Click: Venetian Night 2008

No offense to July 3rd or 4th, but the greatest fireworks display of the year is neither of those nights. It's tonight, as the City of Chicago, along with WXRT radio present Venetian Night 2008.

The light show begins about 8:30, not up in the sky, but at eye level, just above the lake. About 3 dozen large boats will be decorated with lights, props and drunken dancers as they parade along the shoreline between the Shedd Aquarium and the Chicago Yacht Club at Monroe Street. If you tune into 93.1, you can hear descriptions of the boats and background stories as they sail past you. Make sure you bring radio with you!

At about 9:30, crank your radios up and look skyward. The fireworks will be timed to go off along with the music coming out of 93.1 FM. These tend to be some of the newest & greatest firework technologies each year.

Get there early!!!!! The space along the Lake Michigan shore is more limited that you think! If you want a good sightline of the boats and view of the fireworks, bring a blanket or small chairs and stake out a chunk of land before one of thousands of others do before you! Plus, there will be a mini-air show before it gets dark.

Venetian Night is the longest running event produced by the City of Chicago. Combined with WXRT's fireworks, this is a must see event! Plus it ends early enough, where you can still go out and enjoy the evening downtown. Tell 'em Larz sent ya'!

Product Placement On WFLD Fox32 Newscasts

According to the New York Times and TelevisionBroadcast.com this week, Chicago's Fox32 newscasts are now using product placement from McDonalds on their broadcasts, with cups of Mickey D's coffee sitting on the desks in front of the morning news anchors.

This doesn't sit well with me (not the coffee itself, the product placement of it). Product placement has been part of movies for many years and has recently become popular with TV shows, especially Reality TV shows. I don't have a problem with product placement inside of any visual entertainment medium, as long as it doesn't detract from the show itself. It is a wise way of finding alternative advertising dollars in tough economic times. HOWEVER... television newscasts are different. We expect our news sources to be unbiased, honest... pure. Granted, some news outlets have crossed that line in recent years, most notably Fox News Channel, but overall, our wants out of our news sources stay the same. Product & logo placement during a newscast is wrong. It takes away from the seriousness of the news. It puts in doubt that the news broadcast would be able to honestly report a problem with the McDonalds Corporation while purposely sipping on a McD's iced coffee. What is Exxon/Mobil decided to have their logo hang behind the anchors? Would the anchors then be able to honestly speak of rising oil prices? Of course not. It implies that the news outfit and even the anchors themselves support & endorse the product. That's good for the product, but bad for the anchors.

Commercial breaks during a news broadcast are different. The viewer expects commercials in between segments. They understand that the station or network is airing these spots, not the newscast & anchors themselves. There is a clear divide between the anchors & the ads. With product placement, there is no longer a divide. It cheapens and lessens the newscast and all involved. Is the few hundred dollars they received that week, worth the potential loss of viewer's respect? Is it worth the possible FCC fines & legal expenses that would follow? I can't see how it could be.

Now I know that the Fox News parent company crosses the line of "pure" newscasts on a daily basis with their Republican-leaning broadcasts. However, most thinking viewers know this BEFORE tuning in and have no problem with it. Fox News is simply "preaching to the choir" with much of their output. The Fox-owned local news stations across the country do not do this. They have always stayed neutral. They are still politically neutral, but with some of them now accepting product placement, like Chicago's WFLD-TV, it makes it seem like they have lost some of that neutrality.

Rick Kaempfer's excellent novel from last year, Severance, jokingly talked about the Nascar-ization of newscasts, with product placement taking over. The joke isn't so funny when it comes true.

Let's hope this is just a poor advertising decision on WFLD's part and not the shape of things to come.

"Why Doesn't Washington Like Free Radio?"

Greater Media is a publishing & radio station company with stations in a handful of larger markets (not Chicago, though). Greater Media President & CEO, Peter Smyth, writes a monthly column on the Greater Media website. For radio people, this month's new column is an interesting read! Entitled "Why Doesn't Washington Like Free Radio?," he talks about the strange goings on in Washington, with the only two satellite radio companies being allowed to merge into a monopoly and terrestrial radio being forced to pay many billions of dollars a year to play the same music they have been broadcasting for free since radio was first invented.

Best line: "How in the world did we become the bad guys?"

You can read his column/blog until the end of this month at this link here:
Peter Smyth: "Why Doesn't Washington Like Free Radio?"