Brian Williams For Subway

Is anyone surprised that Brian Williams mentioned "30 Rock" before he mentioned David Broder in his March 9 Daily Nightly blog post? That's a perfect illustration of where his priorities lie. Promote, promote, promote. And when you're done, promote some more. After all, it's been more than a week since Nightly News showed a "30 Rock" clip as part of a news story (it was during the March 1 story about the White House study on women in America). Promote, promote, promote. Just like on Tuesday's broadcast, when Brian read a 30-second "news story" about how Subway now has more outlets worldwide than McDonald's. This is news? It's a 30-second commercial for one of NBC's biggest advertisers. The Subway logo was on screen for half a minute! What's that worth? $25,000? $50,000? Who knows. Maybe more, since it was integrated into the broadcast as a product placement. Perhaps Brian is replacing Jared as the official Subway spokesperson. But I especially love how Brian made sure to mention that McDonald's still makes more money than Subway. After all, Brian wouldn't want to incur the wrath of the cash cow known as McDonald's (I think that's the name of their new burger--the cash cow). Can you imagine any other network newscast reporting this story? But then again, no other network newscast makes a point of reporting on their sponsors' activities as if they were actual news. Only Nightly News does this. And they seem pretty darn proud of themselves.