A Bowl Full Of Promos To Kick Start The Day
This past weekend, "Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts was quoted in the Los Angeles Times saying she felt "some discomfort with the show's relentless promotion of ABC entertainment programs, such as 'Desperate Housewives.'"
"It's a fine line that all the morning programs walk," she told reporter Matea Gold. "We understand the reason why, and anything we can do to keep the show successful and it helps us, as well, but, yeah, every person who's a true newsperson, there's a point where, you do it, but sometimes you're like, 'Can't we just do it three times a week instead of four times a week?'"
The cross promotion Roberts lamented in the Times has become commonplace on all the networks, and nowhere is it more apparent than in the morning. A viewer might click from a Roberts panel with "Desperate Housewives" star Marcia Cross over to Matt Lauer's chat with the latest "Apprentice" reject on "The Today Show" to Harry Smith's interview with a "Survivor" castoff on "The Early Show." (And the primetime shows often return the favor – see "Survivor's" regular plugging of "The Early Show" castoff interview in its broadcast.)
The practice troubles news purists, who complain that it further weakens the morning shows' already tenuous claims at serious news programming. "As we enter the new primetime season, the networks' primary goal seems to be to parade one perky, blow-dried, disposable TV star after another to promote the networks' primetime offerings," wrote Jon Friedman of MarketWatch on Sept. 28. He called the morning shows a "joke" engaging in "free advertising," writing that they are involved in a contest to decide, "Who's the Biggest Shill?"
Michael Bass, Senior Executive Producer of "The Early Show," says that the morning shows are simply giving people the kind of programming that they tune in for. According to Bass, "Good Morning America's" rise in the ratings can be linked to its embrace of "Desperate Housewives." "If I had 'Desperate Housewives,' I'd be doing it to," he says. It's the morning shows, he adds, not the primetime programs, which are the greater beneficiaries of cross promotion.
I read the Roberts' quote, the one in which she talked about her discomfort with the promotional aspect of her job, to Bass. "It's easy to publicly come out and say we're not all that comfortable doing the publicity," he said. "But the fact is that they're doing it, and the fact is it's helping their show, and they're going to keep doing it. I could say to you we're almost to the point of distress about how much promotion we need to do. But if it helps our show, we're going to do it. It's a bit hypocritical to complain about it when it's helping your show." Bass said that his comments were not geared specifically to Roberts.
He also said there are occasions when "The Early Show" is asked to do a segment "that's not to benefit our ratings but really more to benefit" those of another show. He is open to doing so, he says, because others in the network help his show as well – by giving him access to "Survivor" castaways, for example, or first crack at the stars of "CSI." "It's a back and forth, a working partnership, because we're on the same team," says Bass.
Harry Smith, co-anchor of "The Early Show," has seen plenty of cross promotion in his day – he regularly interviews CBS actors and reality show participants, and has even competed on a CBS reality show, "The Amazing Race." (His co-anchor Julie Chen also hosts the CBS reality show "Big Brother.") He says the cross promotional aspect of his job "comes with the territory."
"Any of us who do morning television do it with our eyes wide open," he says. "Either you make peace with it or you go crazy. I made peace with it a long time ago."
Smith mentions Edward Murrow, who did celebrity interviews in part because it allowed him to do serious news pieces. "They were fighting the same battles 50 years ago," he says. Murrow "was smart enough to know that's what pays the bills."
"Sometimes what you do just for showbiz affords you the opportunity to do something more substantial," adds Smith. "I've traveled all over the country and all over the world to cover news, and I understand that unless enough people are watching so that advertisers are interested in buying time on our show, I don't get to do that stuff."