Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012
McDonald’s is paying local news television stations to place cups of its iced coffee on the presenters’ desk during morning broadcasts.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, the two presenters of KVVU-TV’s morning show in the Nevada city are not supposed to acknowledge the coffee, which is actually fake, and rarely touch the logo-covered cups.
The coffee can currently only be seen after 7am when the harder news is replaced by lighter stories.
The agency that arranged the deal said it expected that the coffee would be pulled off screen if the station ever ran a negative story about McDonald’s.
Meredith Corporation is understood to be allowing advertisers place their products during the morning shows that air on stations it owns in Hartford, Connecticut, and Atlanta, Georgia.
Similar deals with McDonald’s are running in television stations in Chicago, Seatle and New York, said the New York Times.
