Part of the reason I stopped watching the local news at 11 o’clock (other than their warped idea of what’s important information), was that I couldn’t stomach so many car commercials.
What made them think I was in the market for automobiles?
DVRs made it easier to avoid such ads, but now network shows are fairly dripping with ads in their content, especially reality shows.
Two occurred one right after the other on Sunday. First the participants on “The Amazing Race” had to pause to remark at how cool the automatic parallel parking assist in the Fords they were driving. The hour show is good at collapsing action so that you don’t have to see every team do every challenge. But you had to see every one of them marvel at the new feature as they were driving to the car museum in Milan where they would seek another Ford.
This is on the show where at least one episode features carrying a Travelocity gnome statue to the pit stop. Soon it will be a commercial tie-in at every challenge.
“The Celebrity Apprentice” is a bad show built on commercial tie-ins, but Sunday’s was especially egregious, as the teams had to create big presentations on the new Buick, which they had to praise to high heaven and lie about owning one.
A straight infomercial would be preferable to the exhausting boardroom scene where Donald Trump parses out his dim wisdom.