Steven Levitt, of Freakonmics fame, blogged yesterday about his invitation to be interviewed by Sky Radio Network, airing on American Airlines. Although accustomed to turning down dozens of interview requests a week, he decided that he would agree to this interview request. That is, until he realized that this was not an interview request, but a sales pitch to get a sound bite delivered to a captive audience under the auspices of journalism. Dr. Levitt was afforded the opportunity to pay just $3,995 to get his interview aired on AA via Sky Radio Network’s programming.

All of my flying over the past several years has pretty much been limited to short haul flights on so-called regional airlines, so Sky Radio Network was new to me. Jumping over to their website you are instantly greeted with a long list of prominent personalities and the ability to listen to their interviews. Had I just stumbled upon the site, my first impression may have been that I found a treasure trove of information, but, finding it as I did, my first thought was “Wow! Look at all these people who shelled out four grand to make an infomercial!”. However, given some of the names on the homepage, I think it’s a safe bet that not all the interviews were paid for by the interviewee. And therein lies the problem: if you can’t tell the difference between an interview and an infomercial, the the credibility of all of them becomes suspect. My guess is that the masking of the fact that the “interviews” are paid for by the interviewee is part of Sky Radio Network’s business plan. To be fair, at the bottom of each web page the statement “Guests on our shows may have paid a fee to appear.” can be found. How many of you frequently read the footers of webpages?

I just listened to about 15 minutes of “Radio Entrepreneur” as broadcast by Sky Radio Networks on American Airlines, and I have it say it was a little painful. It started out decent enough, with what was probably a “real” interview, but then turned into a series of infomercial-esque “interviews”. One was particularly amusing at the “interviewer” said something like “this is exciting” in a dead monotone voice. I’m sure it’s pretty obvious to most people that these interviews are really advertisements, but no where in the programming was that explicitly made clear.

It is easy to see how Sky Radio Network is attractive to the airlines. As airlines become more savvy at finding and exploiting “ancillary” revenue streams, getting paid to broadcast radio programming on flights is a great proposition. My initial line of thought was that American Airlines, or any other airline broadcasting this programming, could be adversely affecting by associating their name with the broadcast. However, I think that is really pretty unlikely given what I just listened to, just like I doubt a passenger would look down on an airline for making the Home Shopping Network available through a seat-back TV.

Perhaps Sky Radio Network and/or American Airlines should reconsider their existing model. Obviously there is a market where passengers will pay to listen to or watch CNBC or ESPN, but ad-supported broadcasting on airlines likely has more potential than is currently being exploited. I’ve stared at a moving map display in the seatback of a Frontier flight for hours because I was too cheap to pay for the programming, but I would have happily sat through commercials in order to have something free to listen to or watch. Likewise, I’m sure a lot of passengers would be interested in hearing a thoughtful interview of Steven Levitt, and he was there for the taking until he was asked for $3,995.