Product placement in traffic reports? I suppose traffic reports are already sponsored (the most obvious, Commander Chuck Street's "Mountain Dew helicopter" on KIIS-FM).
But Clear Channel is taking things a bit further in Chicago, where Sun-Times columnist Robert Feder reports that the radio group is altering its traffic reports after striking a deal with local concert/sporting venue the Allstate Arena.
Unlike here, where traffic reports pretty much stick to where the accidents are, and whether or not the 405 is moving, in Chicago the reports estimate how long it takes to get from the suburbs to downtown, and vice versa. While covering travel times on the Kennedy Expressway, for example, traffic reporters will tell you how long it will take to get to and from O'Hare Airport.
But not anymore, at least on Clear Channel stations, according to Feder: "Thanks to a yearlong marketing agreement with Allstate Arena -- the first under Clear Channel's "traffic destination rights program" -- travel times are to be reported "from Downtown to the Allstate Arena" rather than to O'Hare, starting next week. The concert venue and sports facility, formerly known as the Rosemont Horizon, is located near O'Hare in northwest suburban Rosemont.
"The edict came in a memo this week from Barry Butler, general sales manager for Clear Channel Traffic Chicago. Butler declined to say how much Allstate Arena was paying for the product placement plugs in traffic reports."
The Allstate Arena, by the way, is booked mostly with Clear Channel Entertainment-sponsored events.
Could it happen here? I can see it now: Attention all L.A. traffic reporters: For now on, all "SigAlerts" will be referred to as either "Sit-n-Sleep Alerts" or "Robbins Bros. Alerts."
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