The Glades and the KIA

I've been watching The Glades, a show about a homicide detective in Florida and his nurse girlfriend. This nurse, Callie, is a single mother who drives a KIA. I stopped watching the show after a certain scene involving the car. As she was driving her son to soccer, the camera panned around the outside and interior of the car and Callie then proceeded to plug the various features that the KIA has, such as a sunroof and an awesome entertainment system. The blatant product placement ruined the entire show for me, and I stopped watching it. I just saw another episode, and they had basically the exact same scene, just with a different model of the same car. I'm sure that the money that KIA paid them to make their show into an ad helped with the production, but it also ruined the integrity of the show. I get that product placement is a new and innovative way for advertisers to shove more products down our throats, but it's getting to the point where it's counterproductive and the companies just seem desperate. WE have TiVo for a reason- so we can watch shows without ads.

Gossip Girl

Doesn't every teenager love pissing off their parents by doing thing that they don't want us to do? Gossip Girl, a CW show about the lives of Manhattan's teenage elite, took that love of rebellion and put it into an ad campaign.

They took the reaction of the Parental Advocacy Group, which was horror over the rampant sexuality that it shows, and pasted it over some of said sexual scenes. Seems as though the group's best efforts to rid their homes of "bad influences" backfired, as the show went on for a long while afterwards, with a large and dedicated fanbase. This is one of the few ads that appeals to our need for sex and also our wish to rebel from the normal lives we lead.

Boston Marathon Bombing Coverage

The Boston Marathon Bombing shocked everyone in the country and the different ways that it was covered by different news stations was very interesting. I was watching Extra and they actually had a story about the different coverages of the event of the different stations, in particular The Today Show and Good Morning, America. Good Morning, America featured a bunch of photos of the bombing and had a very dramatic coverage that seemed like they were exploiting the terrible situation just to get more viewers with the shock factor. The Today Show, on the other hand, has been commended for their stellar coverage of this disaster. They kept it much more low-key, which I'm sure that the victims really appreciated. I've always felt that while the news keeps us informed of what's going on in the world, news stations overdo it and make their coverage slightly disrespectful of the victims. But I found The Today Show's coverage to be perfect, which I'm sure others will agree with and perhaps increase their viewership.