A trio of local TV stations in the United States have been duped into running adverts on a bogus ‘sexual wellness blanket’ set up by John Oliver.
As part of his HBO show Last Week Tonight, Oliver set up a trap in which he paid local stations to advertise ‘Oliver’s Venus Veil’ to highlight how easy it is to advertise fake items on television.
Austin-based KVUE-TV, Denver’s KMGH-TV and KTVX-TV in Utah all ran the adverts, with the former two now launching investigations following the mishap.
“Right now, it’s far too easy to make a ridiculous product that makes outlandish claims and get it onto local TV. And the reason I know that is, we did,” Oliver said of the stunt.
“We started a company called Venus Inventions and created something called the Venus Veil, an absurd medical product based on technology that absolutely doesn’t exist.”
See the Last Week Tonight segment discussing the event below.
Following the incident, a spokesperson for KVUE-TV said: “While it is a commercial spot, it was an error to air it, and we are reviewing our processes, so this doesn’t happen again.”
Denver’s KMGH-TV added that the station would be “vetting [its] review processes for non-news segments to ensure our stations follow the proper standards.”
Elsewhere, Oliver recently labelled Joe Rogan a “fucking moron” in regards to his comments about young people not getting vaccinated.
Oliver said on a recent edition of Last Week Tonight that fans shouldn’t listen to Rogan on the issue because it endangers others. Rogan said previously on his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience that young people who are healthy shouldn’t bother getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
The post Local TV stations duped by John Oliver’s bogus sexual wellness blanket appeared first on NME.
