Why You're "Just Browsing" at the Airport with CNBC & USA Today

McNewspaper Stand




If you're wondering why the gift shops at LaGuardia seem a little less snow globe and keychain oriented and a little more hellbent on getting you to watch The O'Reilly Factor, it's not your Murdoch-induced paranoia or the Ambien kicking in preemptively. Brands like USA Today, CNBC and Fox News are outsourcing their brand names to retail shops in airport lounges that exclusively feature items bearing the corporate watermark.

Two possible reasons for the baffling business tactic:

1) The decline in viewership, for both television and glossies, has media corporations looking to expand their names into wholesale businesses as a way to raise revenue and

2) September 11th:

Bobbi Passavanti, a spokeswoman with The Paradies Shops, said the CNBC and Times stores her company runs under contract are profitable and thriving, in part because of longer passenger waiting times engendered by post-Sept. 11 security measures.

"You have a captive audience," she said. "People want to get through security as fast as they can and they want to get as close to the gate as they can. Then they tend to relax, … come up for air and decide on something to eat and read."

"Captive audience" being completely the wrong word choice for the press release. You know, because of stuff like this.