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AT&T is a paid sponsor of the eightWest program, which may have had something to do with those eight minutes of positive coverage.
Last month, a Rochester, N.Y., morning television news show handed over five minutes of airtime in a thinly-disguised advertisement for local phone company Frontier Communications.
WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids took shilling to a whole new level this morning on its hour-long morning lifestyle program eightWest when it handed over nearly eight minutes to promote AT&T’s U-verse service, infomercial-style.
Essentially handing the microphone over to AT&T area marketing manager Dan Wells, the show’s hosts fell all over themselves talking about how wonderful the service was. Channel 8′s Terry DeBoer had her original AT&T installation personally supervised by Wells, a service ordinary Grand Rapids consumers probably won’t receive.
As the “Cutting Edge” segment progressed, the station ran a chyron including AT&T’s logo and slogan, “Rethink Possible” as Wells talked about all of the service’s claimed benefits. DeBoer just thought it was all awesome, gushing this sampler of reactions as a technobeat soundtrack pounded away in the background:
- “An exciting new adventure in television!”
- “It really is quite remarkable!”
- “The super-sized DVR is awesome!”
- “What are the other services and features that take U-verse to the next level?”
- “It’s exclusively offered to you by our friends at AT&T.”
- “Thanks to the power of AT&T and all of their services, you can save money.”
After eight minutes of enthusiasm, there was no time left to inform viewers of a slightly relevant fact only visitors to their website might have noticed: AT&T is a sponsor of the eightWest program.
http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WOOD Grand Rapids ATT U-Verse 6-10-10.flvSpend eight minutes in AT&T’s marketing Universe on WOOD-TV’s morning lifestyle program, eightWest. (8 minutes)
Other stories of interest:
- AT&T U-verse Voice Suffers Nationwide Failure This Morning, A Few Customers Still Out
- Ripoff: AT&T’s “Home Cell Tower” Helps AT&T’s Congested Network While Eating Your Calling Minutes
- AT&T Launches U-verse in Memphis, But Residents Question “Where Are the Promised Savings?”
- [Updated] AT&T Adds Usage Meter Placeholder on U-verse Accounts
- AT&T Brings U-verse to Springfield, Mo. — Mediacom Will Face Competition… Eventually
The Media will do anything for ad revenue
All When KRON Ch 4 In San Francisco does In Advertisement during their so-call news casts. They at least put an disclamer at the beginning of the segment with “The following is sponsored by …..”