It was prime news time indeed for a shameless Prime plug.

The MGH is referring to the more than two excruciating minutes at the end of Tuesday’s 6pm Nine News Queensland bulletin out of Brisbane where poor dear reporter Lily Greer had to plug Amazon’s Prime Day(s) online sale.

That’s a helluva lot of airtime that was basically devoted to showing a heap of the specials lucky shoppers could snap up during the online sale that runs until Sunday!

Lily gushed that new discounts would be added “every day!”.

There was also plenty of time devoted to some mob called Nakie, whose hammocks, beach towels and picnic baskets would be up to 30 per cent off during the Prime sale.

And as Lily reminded us: when prices are really great, Christmas shopping can begin in July. (she means Amazon Prime Day(s), by the way).

Almost as bad as the time spent on this advertorial – or should that be advertisement? – was the shameless plugs given the segment throughout the hour-long bulletin, starting with Melissa Downes at the get-go right on 6pm: “Amazon reveals its biggest and longest Australian sale!”

Her news-reading mate Andrew Lofthouse declaring breathlessly at the ad break 26 minutes in: “A megga online sale slashing prices by 63 per cent!”

And just before the segment aired, Lofthouse again: “Well, in just three minutes, the mega online sale saving you more than 60 per cent on clothing, homewares, electronics and more. We find the best bargains. That’s just moments away.”

And share a thought for the poor bugger – it’s amazing he didn’t blush – when he had to do the to-camera introduction to this shameless advertorial puffpiece just under 39 minutes in: “ A good bargain can feel like a good win in our cost of living crisis and this week is the superbowl of savings for online shoppers; retail giant Amazon unveiling hundreds of deals for Queenslanders for everything from groceries to gadgets.”

The superbowl of bargains indeed!

As mentioned above, poor Lily Greer from 39.01 minutes into the bulletin until 41.08 minutes was left with the task of running through all the savings before gushing that Amazon’s warehouse in Lytton would be working at 50 per cent capacity to ship all these marvellous savings to south-east Queensland bargain hunters and one of their Gold Coast delivery centres had to put on extra drivers!

Right at the end of Greer’s report, she managed to mention that to access these amazing discounts, shoppers needed to take out a subscription to Amazon – $9.99 a month – “that you’ll need to access this major sales event”.

The Bug hasn’t got the resources – or the desire, to be honestly frank – to find out what this two-minute plug would have cost Amazon prime as an actual paid advertisement which is all it was. Ditto for what commercial links Nine Entertainment Co. might have with Amazon or Nakie.

Regardless, it’s prime-time non-news bullshit that makes a mockery of any claim by Nine News Queensland that it’s a serious, professional, hour-long news bulletin.

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