Advertising Age reports that our TV news is for sale:

Want a chatty local talk show host to dish about your product? More and more local stations are offering it up -- at $2,500 a pop.

Denver's KUSA was the first Gannett-owned station to introduce the advertainment format for its "Colorado & Co." morning show.
The trend is cropping up across a half-dozen Gannett stations in markets such as Atlanta, Denver, Cleveland, Phoenix, Sacramento and, most recently, Minneapolis. The midmorning shows, which replace local news, talk programs or syndicated fare, are a way for stations -- squeezed by network compensation, the costly and unpredictable nature of syndication and a soft local TV ad market -- to underwrite local programming while milking a little more moolah from their daytime schedule.

[...]

The shows have titles such as "Showcase Minnesota" and make no bones about the five- to eight-minute segments being sponsored. The shows are the property of the sales and marketing department rather than the newsroom and, at the end of each segment and again at the end of the show, a host mentions the segment was paid for by the advertiser.

But what if a viewer misses the last five minutes of the segment and turns off the show early?

Influence over news content

Al Tompkins, broadcast and online group leader at the Poynter Institute, recalls a pair of studies conducted by The News Directors Foundation in 1998 and one in 2001, in which eight out of 10 viewers polled said they believe advertisers have an undue influence over news content.

"Anything we do that helps to confirm that in their mind is detrimental to journalism," he said. "I understand they’re not calling this journalism, but it looks and smells a lot like journalism."

The trend is neither new nor isolated to Gannett. Such tactics have been tried, often in small markets, only to be overturned in favor of a 30-minute paid program that has no overhead for the station. And national syndication is no stranger to product placement, although the marketers are often woven more seamlessly into storylines -- think: Oprah's Pontiac giveaway or American Express' sponsorship of Ellen’s New York tour.

The viewer jury appears to be out. Ratings for such shows are tepid, with shares in the mid-single-digit range. (By contrast, a syndicated show is generally considered successful if it approaches double-digit shares.)

So, I'm at a loss. Rev. Dr, why should we not care about this development? Help me give up on this one.