"We are here to serve advertisers."Everyone already knows about product placement. If a character in a movie is drinking from a can of Pepsi instead of a fictitious brand, who's going to mind? But it's another thing entirely when paid product placement begins interfering with the content of a show, particularly if that show is a news broadcast.
-Michael H. Jordan, former CEO of Westinghouse/CBS
A VNR (video news release) is one of the most common forms of these advertisements that air during programs rather than the commercial break. Local news outlets are paid to show them and pass them off to the viewing audience as legitimate news stories. For instance, a piece about a new diet-related product would be passed off as a 'health' story, and viewers will be led into thinking they're learning about an actual news item due to the way in which the ad is presented. Sometimes the piece will be filmed in its entirety and sent to stations, but this creates the problem of viewers at home being confronted by an unfamiliar correspondent, who they'll likely never see again. The more popular method is to send out footage with scripts so that a correspondent at the local station can provide a voice-over, or even appear on camera in inserted footage.
The Center for Media and Democracy conducted a study released in 2006 on the frequency and reach of VNRs, which can be read at this page.
Interfering with content by purchasing favorable coverage in programming has become so widespread that it has taken hold of even "fake news". Prior to the release of the 2009 film Star Trek, Paramount Pictures bought a paid story on the satirical news site The Onion. The video created for the Onion News Network claimed fans of the Star Trek franchise disliked the film as it was "fun" and "accessible". Also in 2009, a feud between MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Comedy Central's Jon Stewart erupted when Stewart mocked Scarborough for openly flaunting a product placement deal with Starbuck's. What Stewart conveniently overlooked was his writers' deal with Apple Computers to insert pro-iPhone and anti-Microsoft jokes into scripts for The Daily Show and its sister program The Colbert Report on a weekly basis. Apple spokesman John Hodgman is even a frequent Daily Show contributor.
