TVSquad

Heinz ketchup is running a contest where it is asking regular folks to make a Heinz commercial for the chance of winning $57,000. Only, it's not going very well.

According to an article in The New York Times, running the contest takes about as much time and energy as it would just to come up with their own damn ad campaign. So far, Heinz has rejected more than 300 submissions because they're too long, pointless, or gross. You can see many of the horrible submissions on YouTube, including this one of a guy brushing his teeth and shaving with ketchup. Ew.

Heinz has also become the target of angry commenters who accuse the company of being "lazy" and "cheap" for asking people to do advertising for free. I have to admit that I bristled when I saw ads for the contest. Even though it turns out Heinz is still paying a lot for the advertising, I'm still annoyed that it is asking people to essentially create a viral video for them.

How do you feel about companies like Doritos, Heinz and Dodge holding this user-generated advertising contests?

At 12:30 p.m. on May 19, Headline News will debut News to Me, a half-hour news program hosted by Eric Lanford and consisting of amateur footage found via the Web and also submitted directly to CNN's I-Report.

According to CNN's press release, the point of this new show is to bring people the best viral videos from the Web so they don't have to surf around and find it on their own. The content used on the show, which will air Saturdays and Sundays at 12:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., will range from the very serious to the very funny. Lanford will also interview some of the folks who submit material through I-Report.

MTV is adding a new category to the MTV Movie Awards: Best Movie Spoof. More exactly: the best movie spoof created by a viewer and uploaded to Yahoo! Movies.

Starting April 23, folks can upload their spoofs to a special site on Yahoo! Movies, which will feature the usual interactivity associated with user content and Web 2.0. The winner will be announced during the MTV Movie Awards on June 3, and other videos will become part of the ceremony thanks to a "World Wide Web Wall."

Julia told everyone about the new VH1 series The Department of Acceptable Media starring Jack Black back in November, and now there's a little more information available, such as when the heck the show will debut (March 23). Oh yeah, and it's not called The Department of Acceptable Media, anymore, it's simply called Acceptable TV.

The new series will feature several three-minute shorts in one episode, some created by regular folks like you and me, and some created by Jack Black and pals. Viewers will vote on which shows to dump and which ones to keep. If that sounds an awful lot like the Channel 101 site, that might be because Channel 101 helped create the series.

Shorts that are too hot for TV will made available online, and creators will also get a share of the ad revenue everytime their short is viewed online. You can watch some hysterical promos for the new series here.

[via Lost Remote]

While video-sharing sites and online communities like MySpace are making user-generated video more and more common, TLC is hoping to bring that same concept to television with My Life As a Child, a new documentary series set to air February 26 at 7pm.

Last year, TLC asked kids ages 7 to 12 to document their lives on camera. Twenty kids out of four hundred were chosen to have their footage used in the series. The kids featured include eight year old published author Adora; Cole, a boy with cerebral paulsy who takes karate classes; and Lisetanne, a black girl being raised by her white adoptive mother. The series will focus on aspects of growing up that is typical for kids of all generations, plus new experiences such as growing up in a same-sex household.