View source for Self-Promotion Disguised as News

{{trope}}
{{quote|''1 hour, 10 minutes: Cross-promotion for on-network or parent-company-affiliated news or entertainment ("Could parent company's movie premise happen for real?", others)''|24-Hour News Networks: A Schedule Without Rest, ''[[The Daily Show|America: The Book]]''}}

When a TV news show runs a feature on a TV program that shows on the same channel, it is usually to promote said program.
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{{examples}}
== Real Life ==
* The entire [[The BBC|BBC News]] coverage of the new series of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' can be described in this category. (In fact, for a while in 2005-2006, hardly a day went by when the BBC 6 O'clock News didn't have at least one item which turned out to be an extended trailer for an upcoming documentary.)
** Occasionally ''slightly'' more justified when they're lead-ins to investigative journalism shows like ''[[Panorama]]''. Then it tends to be more in the category of "genuine news story proceeded by in-depth documentary follow-up".
* On many [[CBS]] affiliates, episodes of ''[[CSI]]'' were followed by the local news, which includes a feature piece on real-world people who practice the featured sexual fetish of the week. They've presumably stopped now, if only because ''CSI'' grew out of that phase.
** CBS affiliates also love to air news stories about ''Survivor.'' Bonus points because, many times, the ''actual'' events happened months ago.
** Similarly, NBC's [[Today]] loves to do cross-promotion of other shows. Or, on Earth Day, NBC Universal's efforts to [[Green Aesop|Go Green™]].
* During the buildup to the premieres of ''[[The Tonight Show]]'' with ''Conan O'Brien'' and ''The [[Jay Leno]] Show'' the two hosts toured every NBC affiliate from Aberdeen to Yakima so NBC could kiss up to every local anchor they could find and promote the shows in interviews that made [[Byron Allen]] look like Edward R. Murrow. If they couldn't get the host to the site...they flew the anchors to an O&O station so they could still do the kiss-up interview.
* Fox News loves to do this with [[FOX]] Network shows, especially ''[[24]]'', one time even giving a plot summary of the show as a question in a Republican debate.
** If ''[[American Idol]]'' has a contestant from the vicinity of the local FOX affiliate, the FOX affiliate ''will'' cover it in detail. For that matter, there are some local FOX affiliates that will air a fluff piece about ''Idol'' each week that it is on, regardless of whether or not there are any contestants from the vicinity
*** Similarly, if an ''[[Extreme Makeover: Home Edition]]'' house is being built, expect no less than 10 minutes per newscast of live cut-ins of the building site from the local ABC affiliate.
** An interesting variation of this took place while ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]'' was in theaters: even though the progressive message of the movie was getting conservatives (who make up most of Fox News' audience base) worked up into a frenzy, the network devoted almost ''no'' coverage to the controversy.
* All of Australia's commercial stations do this way too often. It gets especially annoying when they report the winner of ''Australian Idol,'' as if anyone who cared hadn't watched the show.
** [[The ABC]] recently sunk to this level by promoting their documentary ''The Howard Years'' during the 7 o'clock news.
** In a September 2011 episode of ''[[Media Watch]]'', host Jonathan Holmes [[Deadpan Snarker|satirised and mocked this trope]] ''[[Crowning Moment of Funny|to hell and back]]'' when discussing how an ABC radio channel had devolved into doing it.
* The [[CBC]] had a contest to find new theme music for its "[[Hockey Night in Canada]]" TV program. While the contest was going on, there'd be a new article about a different hockey theme contestant every day on the CBC's news Web site.
* Local news programs airing after Sunday or Monday night (American) football sometimes make the football game the top story. This, when the time schedule of football games all but guarantee that anyone who watches the news on that channel knows how the game ended.
** In a variant of this, in the days before other football scores were reported continuously in the crawl during live games, networks showing a Sunday afternoon football game would tease the viewers to tune in at halftime to see the scores and highlights of other games. After the obligatory commercial break, the halftime show would begin by giving the score and highlights—of the game the viewers had just been watching.
* Variant: For some time between 2005 and 2007, the then-CEO of NBC, Bob Wright, used ''Newsweek'' and Channel 3 News as excuses to promote his highly-dubious charity [[Irony|Autism Speaks]]. He was eventually found out and was fired in February 2007, but promotion of the organization on Channel 3 News has been noted as recently as October 2008.
* Geraldo Rivera has built his entire career on this.
* Back during the Tech Boom, ABC News actually interviewed a sock puppet (a literal one, that is, though it was a [[Sock Puppet]] as well...) to push the parent company's investment in Pets.com. It didn't work out.
* ''Studio Aperto'', the news show of the Italian, Berlusconi-owned channel Italia 1, is practically MADE of this. A typical show is composed of 10% genuine news and 90% tabloid stories about people or TV programs closely related to Mediaset (the parent company). It's no wonder that they broadcast it in a timeslot (6 PM) filled with entertainment programs, as people view it hardly as a news show.
** It should be noted, however, that nearly every Italian news show (at least those in the dinner timeslot) include a "sneak preview" of the following program, often treated in the same way as a normal coverage.

{{reflist}}
[[Category:Advertising Tropes]]
[[Category:News Tropes]]
[[Category:News Broadcast]]
[[Category:Self-Promotion Disguised as News]]