Time's James Poniewozik writes that for the year, The Jay Leno Show lead all other prime-time shows when it came to product placement. Sure, it's only been on three months, but as Poniewozik notes, it has the advantage of being on five times a week!
Jay had a commanding lead of nearly 30% over the #2 show in product placement, and that show was sort of a surprise to me, though it probably should not have been...
Click on over to Poniewozik's story to see the full top 10.
Well, it has to be no. 1 in something.
I should note that this post is brought to you by bing.com
He did say he planned to embrace product placement.
The results are unsurprising. I watch only two of the shows on the list – Biggest Loser and Top Chef – and I make a point to fast-forward through the egregious product placement segments, especially those on Biggest Loser. But then, with Biggest Loser I usually skim through all but 30 minutes of the 120-minute broadcast.
#2 should not surprise anyone who has actually seen it. The special guest hosts they have every week are pretty over the top.
Makes sense. Leno’s ratings are about equal to what commercials get…and his talent level is just below the quality of infomercial morons.
Yes, I watched that (maddening) mashup of clips a whole ago. Product placement is one of the more annoying aspects of his show. However, I do think that it’s hilarious that the graphics people made the browser graphic for the Bing! segment Safari…and have the quick-search bar set to Google.
First in product placement, last in laughs.
I am surprised Colbert is not on this list. Lots of shameless (intentionally so) and hilarious product placement on that show…
I am a fairly unimpressed and cynical chap but I am constantly amazed at Leno’s staying power. He is a staggeringly poor interviewer and talent. And not to be catty but he appears to be a bit of a dullard as well. He wears that silly American flag pin (is he running for senate?) but seems to hate the common American. All of his shticks are rooted in how stupid everyone is. Jaywalking, the newspaper misprints, etc…etc…etc…
They’re all reality shows except for Leno. See, people who watch that crap really *will* watch anything.
Leno is #1 among all late night hosts because his monologue is the funniest by far and people mainly like him for his jokes but some of his skits are great and his interviews are fine, nothing spectacular, but good enough.
@Neal : “Is” or “was?” He’s not a late night host anymore. You can’t compare him, at least rating-wise, to current late night shows because he’s in prime time. And as a prime time comedy, he’s far from #1.
I’m seeing a lot more product placement lately. I’m sure it was there before, but now they’re not even intregrating it in to the storyline. The Bones “Avatar” one was a total distraction.
I went through a “Malcolm in the Middle” episode a few years back, the one where Hal tries to buy his sons’ love, and it averaged one logo/product mention per minute.