You WILL Watch The Adverts
You have to hand it to the TV people, not only can they re-invent their own wheel endlessly, but they keep coming up with a complete range of shapes for it, most of which are not round and several don't have axles.

This Story from the NY Times (Free Reg) talks about producer Michael Davies who plans "a contemporary, hip Ed Sullivan show" for the youth-oriented WB Network, part of AOL Time Warner. The hourlong program, to be broadcast for six weeks this summer, will try to highlight the companies' products in various ways, like putting singers on a set dominated by a logo or building comedy routines around a product."

OK, before the laughing kills me, lets get this straight.

1) These guys think that the people who watch their shows are too stupid to know when their being treated with contempt, but smart enough to have pants with pockets that contain enough money to be worth targeting.
1a) How long before some bright spark in the marketing department reinvents the clever notion that you could put a URL on the screen so viewers could immediately buy Bono's boots or Britney's boob tube? [OK, don't go there]
2) This "hip" generation being the people who invented and use Napster, Kazaa, Gnutella warez sites. So they'll flock to get their "favourite stars" wreathed in Pepsi logos - or maybe they will diss the stars for being crass enough to take part in the show. (Hey guys, we have all these great sponsors, HOW COME WE HAVE NO PERFORMERS?)
3) So now we can throw out all the plans for any programme that predates any product that that any advertiser wants to have wrapped in the plot. See Tyrannosaurus Rex chase down the fleeing McNuggets and worry over the approaching asteroid, timing it with her Swatch watch!!!!
Henry 8 to Ann Boleyn: I am afraid I must cut off your head my dear.
Ann: I understand my liege, please make it quick, perhaps with a Wilkinson Sword.
The working title has been "Live From Tomorrow," but that is expected to change, perhaps to "Live From Right Now." Oh yes, that makes all the difference, or how about "Live from 50 years ago" in honour of Ed Sullivan?

From this story in the Sydney Morning Herald (Expires after about a week) comes this:

To see how far "below the line" marketers will go, take TV's The Gilmore Girls - or don't, if you want to avoid a barrage of ads tailored to the series. The United States show about a young single mother and her teenage daughter was devised by a coalition of multinationals that believed there was nothing on air that provided the perfect platform for their ads.

It is a trend that is seeing advertising masquerade as culture. It also has consumer groups on the defensive and media organisations worried about their income.

Watched one Gilmore Girls, decided it was crap and left, more interestingly, I wonder if the media companies will start suing the advertisers who smuggle promotions into the "entertainment" for "stealing" their airtime?