John Oliver tricks Austin TV station with phony sexual wellness blanket
Camille Sauers for MySA
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“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” spotlighted an Austin news station for airing a fake sexual health blanket that his team simply made up. Eric Liebowitz /HBO
On the May 23 episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the ever-quippy late-night host took on the problem with sponsored content. A common way for media outlets to generate revenue, sponsored content is the practice of incorporating advertising segments seamlessly (and sometimes inconspicuously) into TV news broadcasts, newspapers, and digital publications.
“Right now it s far too easy to make a ridiculous product that makes outlandish claims and get it on to local TV, I know this because we did it,” said Oliver.
Oliver’s team placed bogus sponsored content on three local channels
Lindsey Ellefson | May 25, 2021 @ 6:02 AM
HBO
Two of the three local television stations duped by John Oliver’s team into running sponsored content for a bogus sexual wellness blanket are conducting reviews after the segment aired Sunday night.
According to CNN, KVUE-TV in Austin and KMGH-TV in Denver are looking into their processes after Oliver shined a national light on how easy it is to pay for nonsensical promotions to appear on local stations, using them as prime examples. Representatives for those stations did not immediately return TheWrap’s requests for comment.
The Last Week Tonight host digs into local news stations’ misleading sponsored content shows, successfully placing an absurd ‘wellness’ product on several stations
John Oliver tricks Austin TV station with phony sexual wellness blanket
Camille Sauers for MySA
FacebookTwitterEmail
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” spotlighted an Austin news station for airing a fake sexual health blanket that his team simply made up. Eric Liebowitz /HBO
On the May 23 episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the ever-quippy late-night host took on the problem with sponsored content. A common way for media outlets to generate revenue, sponsored content is the practice of incorporating advertising segments seamlessly (and sometimes inconspicuously) into TV news broadcasts, newspapers, and digital publications.
“Right now it s far too easy to make a ridiculous product that makes outlandish claims and get it on to local TV, I know this because we did it,” said Oliver.