Ethical Dilemmas for NBC?

Earlier this week NBC made history by having its broadcast entirely sponsored by one company in order to reduce commercial interruption. My initial assessment of it was clearly positive and I was impressed that the network is beginning to acknowledge the market forces that are making the traditional TV news model obsolete.

Then I began to ask myself this question, what if Philips (the sponsor of Monday's entire newscast) had a major scandal break out that news day? Something, that demanded to be reported. This would create a serious ethical problem for the network. On the one hand, you don't want to "bite the hand that feeds you." On the other hand, the media needs to feel free to report on anyone or any thing, as is necessary. How does a network do that if it is so dependent on a single source?

So, at this point, I believe it is an excellent idea from a marketing perspective, but potentially dangerous when it comes to protecting the integrity of the news process (something already greatly lacking in the industry, in my opinion). This is the thing that NBC and any other company that is interested in this approach, are going to have to work out.