Product Placement TV: The Commercial IS the Content

Source: New York Times, July 1, 2002 "Who wears the pants on The Best Damn Sports Show Period? Why, the advertisers, literally and figuratively. In the latest example of how television programming and advertising are becoming increasingly indistinguishable, Levi Strauss & Company paid for an actor featured in a commercial for its Dockers pants brand to appear on the show on Fox Sports Net, a cable TV channel owned by the News Corporation and Cablevision Systems. ... 'Commercials are getting insinuated into every part of TV programming,' said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, an organization that seeks to curtail what its members consider the overcommercialization of the media. 'It's a profit-driven race to the bottom. ... That's why we encourage people to turn off the set.' "