Living Well With Montel

Montel Williams is back! He is now hosting an infomercial based upon his old talk show format. Here are some excerpts from a New York Times article about it:

Mr. Williams had gathered a live audience, self-help experts and people who had dealt with problems like the death of a daughter, and he stood before them, gesticulating, tearing up and nodding thoughtfully.

After almost an hour of discussing the problem of depression, Mr. Williams presented the guests with the answer to their problems: a set of books he had written. In other episodes, he suggested solving various issues by buying a debt-relief kit, a rotisserie grill or a blender. For this was not a television show. It was an infomercial, “Living Well With Montel,” and Mr. Williams is being paid depending on how well the products sell.

The company’s formula is to introduce a problem and then offer a solution, Mr. Mirchandani said. For example, in one episode, Mr. Williams identifies childhood obesity as a problem, then offers his solution: a $199 blender that can make healthy soups and smoothies.

In an interview, Mr. Williams said combining a talk-show format with sales was a logical extension of product placement, in which advertisers pay producers or networks to feature their merchandise, like a Coca-Cola cup seen on Fox’s “American Idol.” It is meant to advertise products subtly, even if viewers skip traditional commercials.

“Every single television program is trying to figure out a way to do integrated advertising,” Mr. Williams, 52, said. “There may be those that throw stones, but then I say, ‘Hold up a mirror.’ ” He added that “even the soap operas have integrated cans, keys, cars.”


Could this be the future of the infommercial?