Apple pays for placement?
Corey Greenberg, the tech editor for NBC's Today show, admitted yesterday that numerous technology companies have paid him sums upward of $15,000 for talking up their products on several NBC local and national news shows, including Today, The Wall Street Journal Report and the thankfully-defunct "McEnroe," a show that you couldn't even pay viewers to watch! The companies named include Sony, HP, Creative Technology and... gasp... Apple Computer.
Greenberg glossed over his indiscretion by saying "I have never accepted payment to place a product on NBC News." As for other news shows, he says "I have never accepted payment to say nice things about a product in any venue." He insists the companies retained him as "a spokesperson who could talk credibly and understandably about consumer products."
Product placement is nothing new on TV or in the movies. You can't watch primetime television on any channel – premium cable included -
without spotting at least one Apple product every single night. iMacs and Cinema Displays look just as sharp on TV as they do in real life and they are used liberally on the big and small screen. But... and this may surprise you... the Apple product placements on many of those shows are not only NOT paid for by Apple, but Apple doesn't even make it easy for these shows to display their products or the familiar Apple logo to millions of viewers.
I have first hand experience with a few highly-rated shows that film in New York who regularly rent (as in for money) Apple products. Yes, there are cases when Apple provides the scenery for free and they do have a special department that handles such things, but quite often it's the show that foots the bill because they want that sleek Apple "look" for their scene.
According to the Washington Post, NBC has not severed its relationship with Greenberg and doesn't plan to. "This is a way of doing business for these people," said one NBC official who declined to be identified because the network frowns upon executives talking to the media. "It's hard to find a contributor who doesn't have a connection to one of these things."
Should this bother me more than it does? Because I a) am not surprised this goes on and b) don't really care that it goes on. I'd go so far as to say I actually expect it to go on. How about you?
By the way, if you have any questions about our ethics (wha? we have ethics?) here at TUAW or WIN in general, Jason answered those questions back in January.