"Unregulated product placement is out of control these days," said Hamilton as he took a long, satisfying sip of his Folgers-brand coffee, savoring the full-bodied flavor. "Particularly on television, where product placement is an increasingly necessary source of revenue for all your favorite and least favorite shows." Now the FCC is trying to regulate it in a hilariously heavy-handed way, and evil marketing geniuses are fighting back by, inexplicably, flaunting their scary power over everything you see. "We almost consider ourselves to be the junior writers on the show," says one. The government willl destroy everything to stop you, fiend!:

Last month, the F.C.C. opened an inquiry into whether there ought to be frank disclosure of such deals. Among the suggestions are that the networks be required to display on-screen crawls whenever a paid-for placement is seen on television.

"We're not saying they can't do it - we're just saying they have to let the audience know what they're doing," said Jonathan S. Adelstein, an F.C.C. commissioner.

Yes, let's totally ruin television shows with the prominent placement of not only annoying advertising messages but also government-mandated disclosure statements for those same messages! Either let them do it or regulate it, and stick with it. The FCC's idea is like allowing people to write graffiti on your house, as long as you can write an equally large message next to it noting that what they did is illegal.

Makes me want to slap myself in the head with my Isotoner-brand gloves (THE PRECEDING WAS A PAID ADVERTISING MESSAGE FOR ISOTONER BRAND GLOVES. THIS IS A DISCLOSURE STATEMENT. DO NOT ALLOW IT TO AFFECT THE PLEASURABLE EXPERIENCE OF READING THIS POST IN ANY WAY. WE'RE JUST TELLING YOU).

[NYT]