The Golden Arches launched its latest concept in McBrainwashing this week, introducing its own television channel that plays a loop of news and entertainment programming to 700 Southern California stores (the plan first started testing last fall). McDonald’s couldn’t come up with a snappier name than “the M Channel” despite eight years of development and tens of millions of dollars spent hatching the idea, but then again, “The Daily Double” was already squandered on a burger.
The M Channel will also allow the fast-food colossus to earn money on the side of its burger business by creating promotional content for any company that wants to grab the attention of McDonald’s captive audience of more than 15 million customers per month. The channel plans content along the lines of sports and entertainment news, along with programming specific to different cities and neighborhoods, with the possibility that it could even show local high-school football games and feature regional newscasters at area stores.
Of course, one can’t expect a McDonald’s news channel to hit as hard as the BBC or take a side in partisan politics, which is confirmed by a peek HuffPo takes at a test location in Costa Mesa, revealing an hour-long loop with features on windsurfing, the weather, technology, auto-racing, movies, and a trivia quiz.
The plan is to roll the M Channel out to 14,000 U.S. locations once the project gets green-lit, before moving on to McDonald’s locations all over the world. Of course, if you’re turned off by the very idea of having one more idiot box gabbing vanilla news in your face while trying to sink into the soothing consolation of a McRib, well, at least for now, you’ve still got the drive-in.
McDonald’s TV Channel: Chain Tests ‘M Channel’ At 700 Outlets [HuffPo]
Earlier: McDonald’s Launching Its Own In-Restaurant TV Channel
