• by Joe Mandese , November 7, 2014

Well, probably not a legally binding law, but some sort of immutable law of local TV news coverage now requires TV stations to cover everything Starbucks does, Jim Watkins, the morning news anchor at ABC affiliate WTNH in New Haven, CT, said Friday morning while promo-ing an upcoming segment on the “return of seasonal favorites” at Starbucks nationwide.

“Apparently there’s some kind of law that when Starbucks does anything, we have to put it on the news,” Watkins quipped.

Minutes later, during a national morning news segment about consumer backlash to a different kind of media promo -- movie trailers -- on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” ABC News’ T.J. Holmes ironically did a segment on a new study revealing consumer backlash to movie trailers.

The study indicated that feature film trailers are turning consumers off for two main reasons: they spoil the moviegoing experience by revealing too much of the film’s content, and they are often better than the films themselves.

Holmes reported that 80% of the study’s respondents said they were disappointed that the trailers are better than the films they promote, and cited the three biggest offenders of the past year: “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” “Man of Steel,” and “The Grad Budapest Hotel.”

“Are we going to apologize for the fact that we may have made a better trailer than a movie?,” John Long, co-founder of movie trailer production house BuddahJones, said during the segment. (Shrugs shoulders) “It is advertising.”

During his set-up of the segment, Holmes clued viewers in on the whole process, explaining: “This is really simple stuff, a simple concept. For example, I have 15 seconds right now to preview, or tease the story, I’m about to show viewers. But I can’t make this tease too good, right. I can’t make this tease too good, because I need you to stick around.”

At the end of the segment, while bantering with the “GMA” morning anchor team about consumer backlash to media promos, Holmes turned the segment into a surprisingly revealing critique of TV news hyping as well, cautioning: “It turns people off.

“Look, in this business, we need to all pay attention to this study,” he admonished his “GMA” colleagues, especially “GMA” meteorologist Rob Marciano.

“People get tired about the way we tease people in the news business. Especially the weather folks, who will say, ‘the biggest storm in history’,” Holmes asserted.

“Hey, hey, I’m in the business of saving lives here,” Marciano defended, adding, “People need to be prepared.”

“See what I mean,” Holmes retorted, adding: “It’s a tricky thing -- people are just starting to figure it out.”