'Stealth advertising' counters TiVo ad skipping

'STEALTH ADVERTISING' COUNTERS TIVO AD SKIPPING
[SOURCE: Jim Upshaw, University of Oregon]
Advertisers’ messages are infiltrating small-market television newscasts at about the same percentage that owners of digital video recorders are skipping the commercials, say researchers at the University of Oregon. What’s disturbing about this trend of “stealth advertising” is that viewers seldom are aware of potential slants in coverage because the connection of a story to an advertiser rarely is disclosed, said Jim Upshaw, a professor of journalism. Stealth advertising, he said, uses commercial messages that are intended to promote a product or service “that are cloaked in some other garment than a normal commercial.” “Stations are not telling their viewers that what they are putting on the air in news or feature stories or in other news content is being done to court a specific advertiser,” Upshaw said. “I think people need to learn to be media literate, informed viewers of television. We may not be able to stop these practices but we need to be aware that these practices do exist.”
http://waddle.uoregon.edu/?id=794