Starbucks pays $10 million for 'Morning Joe' appearance

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Starbucks is teaming up with the MSNBC "Morning Joe" show in what the NYT calls "the closest integration between an advertiser and a national news program in recent memory." The coffee chain is reportedly paying the morning news show more than $10 million to mention its brew during each of the three hours of the M-F program. "We've been doing this for free for a couple of years." the president of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, told the Times, referring to hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski apparently guzzling frappucinos like there's no tomorrow on the show.

TV shows like The Office, Friday Night Lights, and 30 Rock have open product placement too (30 Rock being really the only one with any type of soul about it all). Oprah's even gotten in on the action. My question is: What's the difference? It makes sense that, in theory, we should put more stock in the words of a news show host than that of a fictional TV sitcom character and demand higher standards of real live journalists as opposed to paid actors, but is that really the world we live in? Does anyone take these morning news shows seriously anyway? Anyone watch "Morning Joe?"

This all just makes me think of that funny product placement scene in "Wayne's World."