The last season or two (or, if you ask me, five) of The Apprentice, the reality show that has a bunch of emotionally stunted young business people nursing at the teet of Donald Trump, have suffered from declining ratings. There hasn't been a good shakeup of the style of the show or an improvement in the quality of the contestants and ratings for this, the fifth season, are down about 25 percent. That's led producer Mark Burnett to cut the price of a product integration package by about half for the upcoming sixth season, from $2 to 3 million down to $1.5 to 1 million. Some marketers are still balking at that price, but people with the show insist that it's a bargain. That's because the product literally becomes part of the show, with brand and product mentions and placement all over the place.

The price is sometimes even higher, though, since at least one team usually all but destroys the brand in the process of the competition. It's one thing to encourage consumer-generated content and it's another thing to put what sometimes turns out to be awful CGC on prime-time network television.