More branded content infiltrating one hour news
Is a News item really News if it carries a commercial logo -or is it just branded entertainment?
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Now that one hour news bulletins are more prevalent on our televisions, is there a risk we could be in for more ‘branded content’ as news stories?
Earlier this week Seven, Nine and TEN all ran footage of Port Adelaide Football Club (“The Power”) players being hypnotised by Isaac Lomman, who is appearing at the Adelaide Fringe Festival.
Viewers saw amusing scenes of players Daniel Flynn doing Irish dancing and an angry Chad Wingard finding out he’d been ‘traded’ to another club.
But the footage also included conspicuous watermarks for PTV (Power TV) and Energy Australia throughout the reports.
It raises questions about whether screening the footage in the evening news was really news, or just marketing opportunities for the club and its sponsors. Or both?
Nine and TEN both told TV Tonight they sourced the footage online from YouTube. Seven indicated they had approached Port’s media officer to request vision after hearing about the hypnotism.
Usually YouTube vision is not high quality and results in brief inclusions. But on some networks the item ran as a standard-length sports story.
Sunrise, which is co-hosted by Port chairman David Koch, also ran the footage.
It’s not unusual for networks to include amusing stories, commonly referred to as “colour” pieces and frequently including bizarre animal footage. Decades ago they would invariable run after the weather report.
Nowadays YouTube clips of crazy traffic driving, weather incidents and closed circuit vision are regular inclusions.
We also get a fair bit of fashion parades strategically plugging our bigger department stores. But at least the crews are going along and retain editorial control.
However having commercial logos emblazoned on our screens for entire news stories -produced by third parties- does open the door to all sorts of shady opportunities -especially when networks have one hour bulletins to fill.
Savvy media officers must be licking their lips as they start getting creative.
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- Tagged with Nine News, Seven News, Sunrise, TEN Eyewitness News
13 Responses
Anything AFL is considered news !
As someone that now knows they have a partial phobia against some computer graphics they seriously don’t want to know what the wrong computer graphic does to me. It does appeal to my dark sense of humour however. Because it isn’t making me want to buy or do stuff. It’s the ultimate in anti-advertising. I haven’t complained about it because all I care about is not being actively discouraged from watching TV. I don’t care if a sponsor or the like doesn’t want me to buy them or have anything to do with them. Just a thought…
Even if I didn’t have a phobia I’m not for advertising on the News. It consciously and unconsciously puts me off stuff. So they better hope I don’t notice.
Never forget that commercial TV exists for one reason, and one reason only; that is to deliver an audience to its advertisers. Everything else is secondary.
Nine Brisbane ran a story about Jessica Marais doing a stage show which turned into a cross promo for Love Child.
Haha my footy team makes it onto TV Tonight. This is such a huge moment for me.
@Jason: Don’t forget the constant reports during the cricket season featuring the CA TV logo. Media Watch did a feature about this a few years back, organisations supplying already edited and branded clips to TV stations in an attempt to avoid journalistic scrutiny. In years gone by the TV stations would have rejected such propaganda, but now with hours of news bulletins to fill each day it is very convenient to have someone else doing all the work for you.
It should be banned in both the news and current affairs as should cross promotions in the news and current affairs Jbar is100% correct it is a disgrace
Last Tuesday night, Seven News in Brisbane had a story that they called “breaking news” – it was just a puff piece about the Corbys granting interview rights to Channel Seven and how they will be suing Channel Nine. If this is what commercial TV news has come to then I’m glad I don’t watch it all the time.
Probably because it came from the port Adelaide website
I’ve seen News do this numerous times with NRL clubs.
Remind me again why I stopped watching commercial news when ABC24 began. Oh, yes, that’s right….
@Bogues – You may have also seen Australian Open Tennis pieces with a logo other than 7 on it, Wimbledon coverage with a Wimbledon logo, MLB news pieces with a MLB logo, NRL pieces with an NRL logo, etc. These are news pieces which have not been covered by local news crews for one reason or another.
Quite different to this ridiculous YouTube stuff tarted up as “news”. What, no Myer sales to promote this week?
ABC News Queensland (7pm) have been showing a lot of the cricketers in South Africa (in the lead up to the tests) with the CATV (Cricket Australia) watermark.
A disgrace.