Thursday, May 17th, 2012
Leslie Moonves was quoted last month in Broadcasting & Cable magazine: “We’re making more and more of those deals: The kind of cars they drive in CSI; the kind of orange juice they drink in Two and a Half Men.” AP reports today that that “advertainment” is notlimited to television. Video games, novels, movies, pop songs, music videos, Broadway plays ? every nook and cranny of the culture, it seems, comes preinstalled with product plugs. Or soon will. ABC, CBS and UPN all insist their policy is to comply with laws passed by Congress nearly 80 years ago requiring that broadcasters and other involved parties identify anyone who gave them “valuable consideration” to air anything. (Fox, NBC and the WB did not respond to a request for comment.) But it may be that the letter of the law is heeded more faithfully than its spirit. A fine-print “promotional consideration” message in the clutter of a program’s closing credits just may not be adequate to get the point across.
