‘The Five’ ads spotted during final episodes of ‘Ellen’ in major market

By MixDex Article may include affiliate links

Fox’s conservative commentary channel has apparently been buying up ad time during popular TV shows to advertise some of its own programming.

It’s not uncommon for shows or networks to pay to advertise their programs during other shows, even ones that could be seen as indirect competitors. Even if the network itself doesn’t want to sell ad time to a competitor — there’s sometimes a backdoor way to do this, namely buying ad time from a local station or pay-TV provider, both of whom are typically allotted certain portions of commercial breaks to sell on their own and keep all or more of the revenue.

Perhaps the most interesting example is Fox’s “The Five,” ads, which have been airing on its own network, but also popped up in the Chicago market during the final episodes of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” meaning the network either had to buy the time directly from “Ellen” and its distributor (syndicated shows typically hold back a few slots to sell nationally), the NBC owned stations or local pay-TV provider.

“The Five” is billed as a roundtable-style show with, typically, five co-hosts discussing issues and news of the day (though the team, which is relatively light on hard news reporting experience, was notably recently tasked with providing rolling coverage of the Uvalde school shooting despite the network having much more seasoned talent that would have provided much better coverage.

Outside of that coverage, the show tends to skew decidedly right, although it attempts to feature at least one left-leaning panelist — so it’s interesting that the network thinks “Ellen” viewers might be interested in switching over to Fox. It’s not surprising, however.

Fox has been touting that, according to its internal research, more independents and Democrats are turning to its channel. The strong support candidates such as Donald Trump get from white women (despite his numerous misogynistic comments), who make up a good chunk of daytime TV audience in general, is also a well known fact.