Infomercial Podcasts -- Should we insist on disclosure?

[WildeGeek]

One phenomenon I think we're going to start seeing very soon, as big-business jumps onto the podcasting bandwagon, is the proliferation of slick, big-budget and well-publicized infomercial podcasts. In a way, I think these are more pernicious than podcasts produced by mainstream media outlets who at least seem to still have a veneer of journalistic ethics.

When a newspaper, for example, publishes an advertisement that could conceivably be mistaken for news or editorial content, they clearly label it as advertising. Recently, about 50 local TV stations were caught playing playing "Video News Releases" that were actually just advertisements, packaged to look like serious and reputable news stories. These stations were investigated and disciplinary action is pending.

In the iTMS podcast directory, in several categories, it seems like many of the top-rated or featured podcasts are not just sponsored by some commercial entity, but rather are the commercial for their product or service. I suspect this has or will become true in some of the other podcast directories as well.

Should RSS have an "ADVERTISEMENT" flag, in the same manner as the explicit tag, to identify when a podcast is really just an extended commercial for a product?

[Hittman]

I don’t think labeling is going to work, but they should disclose the source.

There’s nothing wrong with a commercial, or a commercial podcast, especially if it offers something of value. For instance, if Golf Digest wanted to do a video podcast on how to improve your game, it could be very valuable for golfers. OTOH, if it’s just a series of ads for the magazine, no one is going to stay subscribed for long.

What about shows that are commercial radio re-packaged as a podcast? I listen to the Dave Ramsey show fairly often, and it’s full of ads, including ads for him pitiching his stuff. It’s an hour of his radio show, and you have to pay to get the full three hours sans ads. You could argue, since he’s selling his program, subscriptions, and other stuff, that it’s a big advertisement for his products. Should it be labeled? And who would enforce that?

[docsnavely]

As this is such a new medium, and it is pretty much dominated by one company right now, which by the way has very deep roots in advertising.... what makes you think that they would even allow themselves to put a tag claiming "Advertisment" or make anyone else do such a thing?