Can I Buy A Little Love?

A front-page story in today's Wall Street Journal details how networks are trying to buy positive buzz with "Blogola":

TV critics have called "The New Adventures of Old Christine" one of the decade's funniest comedies.

(Sound of screeching as brakes are applied)

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold it right there. One of the decade's funniest comedies??? Are we talking the same show here?

I've watched several episodes of said sitcom and, even though I have a warm spot in my heart for Julia Louis-Dreyfus from her days on "Seinfeld" (and feel a certain amount of sympathy for anyone married to Brad Hall), it is at best mildly amusing. Overall, it features far more misses than hits and is most definitely not must see TV. Okay, back to the article.

But when CBS recently wanted to create buzz for the show, critics weren't the targets of the publicity campaign.

Neither were newspaper feature writers, whom a publicist for the show's star, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, declared weren't "worth her time."

The so-called "mommy bloggers" were another matter. Warner Bros., the studio that produces the show for CBS, identified 12 blogs about motherhood, a key theme in "Old Christine," and invited the writers to spend the day on the set. The bloggers got free DVDs, watched a rehearsal and made videos with Ms. Louis-Dreyfus and other cast members to post on their sites. "It was totally rad," says Yvonne Marie, the publisher of a Web log called Joy Unexpected.

Who says you can't buy love? Trying to tap into the burgeoning power of blogs as promotional tools and fed up with the jaded attitudes of professional critics and TV feature writers, studios and networks are flooding bloggers with free stuff in hopes the flattered recipients will reward them with positive coverage. Flowing into the trough is everything from fancy gym bags and toasters to video iPods and free trips. Some networks -- in the spotlight this week as they unveil their fall schedules to advertisers -- have even borrowed a term from the technology industry to describe the strategy: blogola.

I like the sound of that.

Until the 1980s, when news outlets started devoting more space to business coverage and reporters began peering more intently behind Hollywood's curtain, many mainstream writers were showered with gifts. The result was usually fawning coverage. Networks would like nothing more than to re-create that system with blogs.

Now, I REALLY like ths sound of that. Where do we sign up?

Mainstream news outlets now have strict rules governing to what extent their palms can be greased. Presents valued at more than $25 are typically banned, and that includes travel. But most blogs, many less than five years old, don't have such rules.

I guess we here at Frater Libertas are a notable exception in the policy-free 'sphere for we have one iron clad rule for all freebies:

Take whatever you want as long as The Elder gets his cut.

By the way, did I tell you what a great show CBS's "The New Adventures of Old Christine" is? Easily one of the funniest comedies of the decade.

What?