We are all used to the "infomercials," on TV, but this sure jumps over the line. And when watching the show, you would never know it. Next Step? You want a news story about something on the local evening news, you buy your way on, and they include it in the program. "Jim Jones won an award as salesman of the month," to "Joe and Jane got married today, and here is the wedding."
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Florida TV Station Cashes In on Interview 'Guests'
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 16, 2003; Page C01
David Morgan, a morning show staffer at the NBC affiliate in Tampa, minced no words when a public relations agent asked how he could get his client interviewed on the program.
"You pay us and we do what you want us to do," Morgan told him Friday.
What would the segment be like?
"There's a male and female host, a huge studio, leather chairs. We have a kitchen just like the 'Today' show. It's a regular morning show but we do sell segments in it."
And the fee?
"Twenty-five hundred bucks for four to six minutes."
Most networks and local television stations have strict rules against pay-for-play journalism. But at WFLA-TV, in the nation's 14th-largest market, producers on "Daytime" are not shy about asking guests to pony up. They have turned the routine daily booking of guests into a commercial transaction.
Eric Land, WFLA's president and general manager, sees no problem with the payments "from an ethics standpoint," saying: "It's not a news program, nor is it operated by the news department. It's a separate entertainment program."
As for the propriety of charging guests, Land said: "This television station has a history of breaking new ground. It gives some local advertisers who might not have production capabilities a chance to come on and demonstrate their product or service in a different format than 30-second spots."
No mention of payment is made during the interviews. At the end of the show, the words "the following segments were paid advertisements" appear in small type on the screen for about four seconds, along with a listing of the stories.
Adam Handelsman, who runs a New York public relations firm, was setting up media interviews for a California businessman last week. WFLA referred him to Morgan, a salesman for the station, who offered what was termed a "sponsored segment."
The Washington Post contacted Handelsman after receiving a tip, and when he spoke with Morgan a second time, a reporter listened in on the conversation.
Asked by Handelsman if it were possible for his client to be interviewed without making the $2,500 payment, Morgan discouraged him, saying: "That's totally at the producer's discretion." If the client agreed to the fee, Morgan said, "we'll get on the horn with the producer and talk about what you need: special lighting, whether you're going to have props."
Handelsman said yesterday he has arranged interviews for clients for a decade "because of the unparalleled credibility gained through favorable editorial coverage." But, he said, "to see a television news outlet selling their editorial endorsement is an affront to the hundreds of reporters, editors and producers that I've worked with."
His client had a similar reaction. "I was shocked," said Edward Hoffman, founder and chief executive of SafeCar Services, a California firm that provides prepaid taxi rides for young people. "I didn't understand that these journalistic outlets would work in that way. I would never consider paying for a placement. . . . I've never heard of anything like this in journalism."
WFLA is owned by Richmond-based Media General, which also owns 25 other stations in 12 states and 25 newspapers, including the Tampa Tribune and Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Lou Anne Nabhan, a spokeswoman for Media General, said the company is comfortable with the level of disclosure at WFLA. " 'Daytime' is a new concept," she said. "Other Media General stations are looking at the concept, interested in it, but no other station has launched such a program as of yet."
NBC had no comment, but an official noted that under its contract with affiliates the network has no control over the content of a local program, which in this case follows the "Today" show.
Morgan declined to be interviewed.
While Land likened the paid segments to an "infomercial," the slickly produced "Daytime" looks like a regular local morning show, with NBC's peacock logo and a "News Channel 8" insignia at the bottom of the screen. On one program last month, co-host Debra Schrils was seen taking a swamp-buggy tour at Florida's Babcock Wilderness Adventures before chatting up the company's tour director in the studio. "I never knew that existed, and it's just south of here! And there's so much wildlife!" she gushed.
The tour director, Steve Tutko, said yesterday that it was "a great show" and that "we had some people that made a reservation from watching the show."
D.T. Minich, executive director of the Lee Island Coast Visitor and Convention Bureau, which paid for the segment, said it was part of a media buy that includes two other guest spots and commercials on WFLA. "That's what made the whole opportunity attractive to us," he said.
In another paid segment, Schrils interviewed a Wendy's executive and a student athlete about the restaurant's Heisman awards for young football players involved in community service. "Will there be an award winner from our area?" she asked.
"There will be 10 winners from the state of Florida," said Joe Johnston of Wendy's. Schrils gave out the Web address and toll-free number for applicants.
Local television stations sometimes make deals with commercial sponsors. Washington's WTTG has aired a "High Tech Health" segment on "Fox News at 10" that features George Washington University Hospital, which sponsors the reports. Station executives have said the sponsorship does not influence editorial content.
Three Baltimore TV stations have broadcast health segments that include interviews with employees of the medical centers that provide the sponsorship, according to the Baltimore Sun. Another station, WJZ, has run reports that provide a hotline number for the sponsor, St. Joseph's Hospital.
When the syndicated program "World Business Review," then hosted by former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger, was launched in 1995, business groups were asked to pony up at least $35,000 to have their chief executives interviewed. Weinberger said at the time that he was unaware of the arrangement.
On major stories, network magazine shows sometimes bend their rules against paying guests by putting them up in fancy hotels or buying photographs or home movies. Last year, a booker for NBC's "Today" show took a 17-year-old girl -- one of two teenagers who had been kidnapped and later released -- on a shopping trip and bought her an $80 pair of pants before she was interviewed. An NBC spokeswoman said that was a violation of network policy.
While networks sometimes stretch the rules against compensating guests, most stations would consider it a firing offense to ask a potential interview subject for payment.
"I thought that these shows were supported through paid advertising, not the guests they have on the show," Hoffman said.
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