Septemberbaby

Oprah's Favorite Things show has nothing on Ellen.
She's doing a 12 day give away.. and boy, is she giving some great stuff
away.
No gourmet popcorn, designer chocolate or outrageously priced handbags, slippers or hats that you wouldn't be caught dead with. She's giving Plasma Tv's, IPods, and every other electronic goodie you can think of.
And it runs for 12 days, where Oprah's is only one day..

Seantn

Holy crap, when does it start. Heh, maybe I can get tickets to her show, I live near Burbank!

Septemberbaby

I don't know when it started..I watched yesterday and today.

Jadzia

If these talk shows really want to impress me, they should send things to the viewing audience. Who cares what the studio audience gets?

TheMadMonk

Yeah, let's reward a bunch of people who just sit in an audience. God knows they deserve it.

Y2K Falcon

Well, I'm guessing that:

(Plasma TV + iPod) x Ellen's tv audience < box of chocolates x Oprah's tv audience

Seantn

Does she give them to the entire audience (Everyone gets a tv, or everyone gets an ipod), or is it that random people in the audience get them? Just curious.

Howiefan

The entire audience + on her website, everyday they let viewers at home enter a contest to win all the items.

TheMadMonk

If she gave these out after the show's taping was over, just quietly gave them as gifts to the audience, it might mean something.

But the way it is, it is just a way to get popular/ratings and showcase her generosity (Oprah falls in this category, also), and isn't that what the spirit of giving is all about?

NitroJMS

No, it's about pushing plasma tvs and iPods on tv. Sony, Apple, and whatever company is getting cheaper publicity by just giving these shows 200 products to give away than buying ad time, plus they get the added bonus of having Ellen or Oprah shown playing with and enjoying the product. That's much more valuable than a $50,000 ad during daytime television. It's not so much an ad, as a demonstration. Ads are consciously filtered out by most people, but alot of people think, "Gee, if Oprah is enjoying her brand new 30 gig iPod Video, I'd probably like one too." Just look at how effective her bookclub is at making bestsellers.

Septemberbaby

And if you were there in the audience.. you would be lapping it all up just
as the rest of us would do.
Of course it's nothing but a product placement frenzy. But, it's all done in
good fun.

SMB-IL

Wow -- I haven't seen something this cynical in awhile -- Merry Christmas!!

NotThatGuy

It is product placement and ads galore....but everyone wins.

-p

leepyswetr

Fixed.

B.A.

Ellen rules, Oprah drools.