In a display of self-promotional chutzpah that has even ardent synergy-watchers dropping their jaws, CBS made Survivor, the game show hit of the summer, into Survivor, the news story of the summer.

Shuffling headlines and stars among local and national newscasts, CBS turned the show's participants into household names by cross- promoting their appearances on other network properties, such as The Early Show and Late Night with David Letterman. To bolster both the brand and the bottom line, CBS turned a ratings hit into an ongoing news story.

The zeal with which CBS and its affiliate stations sold Survivor (and Big Brother) as news is unprecedented in media history, and sure to remain so until at least next January, when Survivor 2 premieres on the night CBS airs the Super Bowl.

Follow the synergy trail:
Surviving the News
A CBS station out-hypes, out-plugs, and out-sells the competition. 

WCCO asks "What's Driving Survivor?" in this self-indicting "Dimension" report. A classic example of a station whoring its news for the corporate bottom line. 

When WCCO News temporarily ran out of Survivor episodes to promote, the station manufactured its own synergizable content with a State Fair Survivor contest. Read the stories that were reported as if the contest was actually newsworthy.

See the VERY LONG list of Survivor and Big Brother "news stories" that have appeared on WCCO TV and its Web site.

Scathing editorial cartoon Rips Survivor News Synergy
(select 8/27 from the pull-down menu)

"The Sins of Synergy, or How I Learned to Stop Cross-Dressing and Love Cross-Promotion" This Cursor feature was the first to chronicle WCCO's synergy-driven "Hometown Scheme."

Visit the Museum 
of Shameless Synergy!
(big load ~500k--but a big payoff.)