Mike Cleaver wrote:The other "elephant" in the room is McDonalds.
They try to strong arm stations into participating in their McCrappy Days promotion, hinting that if they don't get personalities to flip burgers and get free coverage on the station, the advertising contract will be cancelled.
At least it's sort of a "giving back to the community" story (even though it's obviously free advertising), and I can sort of accept it in the confines of your standard morning or afternoon drive show, AND at least McDonalds IS buying spots, but overall I agree it's not great content or the way business should be conducted (the strong arm tactics), but it's definitely not something that should be covered by the news. Someone else made the argument about Tim Horton's Camp Days, and I said "well at least there's a bit of a story in that it's for the community" but then later I thought "screw the community, it's just a way for Tim Hortons to make themselves look good in the media and get free advertising". What I'm basically trying to say is that the only time a company should get free advertising is when it's negative... when it was reported that people were jumping out of iPod factories in China and their solution was to put a net out, THAT'S the news I want to see about Apple