Tuned In+Advertising | 301 days ago

The Morning After: Am I Blue?

By James Poniewozik

Last night in Los Angeles, my fellow TV critics who have already arrived at the TCA press tour attended a party thrown by the Playboy Channel at Hugh Hefner’s mansion. I sat in Brooklyn and watched America’s Got Talent. Not bitter! Because it meant I had the chance to see possibly the most awkward, degrading product placement I have ever seen on television. And I’ve watched American Idol.

The Smurfs showed up on AGT last night, and judges Piers Morgan, Sharon Osbourne and Howie Mandel, plus host Nick Cannon, had to pretend to interact with little blue CGI figures in order to promote their new movie. See the above video if you want to see the whole clustersmurf unfold.

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Tuned In+Advertising | 895 days ago

Jay Leno Is #1!

By James Poniewozik

…in product placement! From the get-go, The Jay Leno Show has been a business strategy first, an entertainment program second. And while its business success is debatable—it’s certainly cut costs for NBC, but often pulls no more viewers than Jay got at 11:30—Nielsen has released an interesting year-end list that finds the show has succeeded [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 959 days ago

South Park Watch: Shut Up, Billy Mays!

By James Poniewozik

[Update: I deleted the embedded video here because it was causing some browsers to crash, and playing unprompted on my own browser, which annoys the crap out of me. But you can see it, other clips—and the full episode—at the South Park Studios website. Apologies.] While we’re on the subject of product placement this morning, [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | 959 days ago

The Morning After: Buy It In Bulk

By James Poniewozik

I highly recommend everyone go read Choire Sicha’s outstanding op-ed in the New York Times this morning about product placement in America, which among other notes that the film version of The Road even managed to work a plug for VitaminWater into a movie about the Apocalypse. (The Coca-Cola scene he mentions, by the way, [...]

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Tuned In+Advertising | 1046 days ago

The (Positive, Enthusiastic, Subsidized) Critics of the Future?

By James Poniewozik

I try not to do too many navel-gazing, whither-the-future-of-criticism posts, but today’s New York Times feature on bloggers paid to do sponsored posts promoting products is the sort of thing that gives me the heebie jeebies.   In a nutshell: successful bloggers can now earn income and freebies by doing posts and videos for advertisers [...]