The Family Business: Entertainment Products and the Network Morning News Shows

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The morning news programs provide an excellent forum for television broadcast networks to benefit from “corporate synergy,” but do they simultaneously compromise the intent of the social responsibility theory of the press? This study measured the entertainment content of the three network morning shows and correlated that to the ownership of the programs and the products being promoted. Results show the morning programs fill their daily news hole at least 20% of the time with entertainment and sports topics, that the entertainment products covered are more likely to have been produced by the networks' parent companies, and that the coverage of entertainment topics is almost certain to be favorable. The results are further evidence in support of calls for revision and update of the Social Responsibility Theory of the Press. The authors suggest that the adoption of the concept of stakeholder theory, applied in the business literature, offers a framework for making responsible editorial decisions in an atmos...