Kent Haehl is Channel One’s
sales manager. His job is to find and sign new advertisers. He
knows the people at Sony Pictures very well. Haehl agreed to promote
Sony’s
drug/alcohol drenched "Loser" movie in 2000, the raunchy
animated 2002 movie "Eight Crazy Nights" and this year’s
sex and drug comedy "50 First Dates."
Having no problem advertising this type of toxic waste to kids,
Kent Haehl must have had no qualms when Sony approached him on
the "Kranks."
In order to maximize the revenue for his company, Haehl suggests
a "news anchor" position be created for one of the actors
in the movie. Sony’s marketing people must have been thrilled by
this, even it it sounded unethical and unprofessional. Haehl has
sold "news" time to advertisers before. To him it is
no big deal. "Anything for a buck" appears to be Kent
Haehl’s personal motto.
The deal was worked out and over the past week, schoolchildren
not only saw commercials for the movie, they also entered a contest
on Channel One’s web site to promote the movie, and they saw a
young actor from the movie co-host the November 22 show. It was
a total movie promo blitz. Haehl made his company a ton of money
and Sony got their captive audience. Who cares if the students
lose incredible amounts of learning time?
