Television Preview is a bait and switch scam

Disclaimer: I have no hard evidence of this, just my experience.

On Television Preview's website they describe themselves this way:
"Television Preview® has been in operation for over 25 years with the sole purpose of testing material being considered for broadcast. By participating in the Television Preview screening event, you have the opportunity to directly influence what you may see on television in the future. You will be participating along with people from across the globe."

I'm a tv junkie so when I got an invite in the mail to participate in a test group for some tv pilots I thought it would be cool. It turned out to be a complete waste of a Saturday night.

I showed up at a Ramada Inn with a couple of friends and we along with about 100 people were told that even though these pilots were a little dated, the producers were thinking of updating and then airing them. The 2 pilots we watched were actually more than 10 years old. The cell phones were the size of burritos and one of the shows starred a Golden Girl.

I started to become a little suspicious when the first thing we had to do was fill out a lengthy survey on various household and food snacks. Before we watched the first pilot we were told that there would be commercials because they wanted to "simulate an actual television experience."

The first pilot was called "Soul Mates" starring Kim Raver (Jack Bauer's girlfriend) and Robert Knepper (Prison Break's T-Bag). The premise was that a psychiatrist has a patient she believes to have been a lover from a former life. They become romantically involved and she discovers that she is now somehow caught up in some big corporate conspiracy. I'd say it was like a horribly cheesy and cliched Hallmark movie of the week, but that would be insulting to Hallmark. It was so bad the audience laughed more than during the sitcom pilot.

When it was over we answered about 10 very basic questions about it like:
Did you like the female character? Yes or No
At the end there were 2 lines for additional comments but we were given about 5 seconds before they turned the lights off and started showing more commercials.

The second pilot was a sitcom called "Dads" about a group of divorced fathers, starring C Thomas Howell and Rue McClanahan. All of the jokes fell flat and the kids were all ultra precocious and creepy. Just like after the first show we answered the same yes or no questions and weren't even given time for additional comments. This was because we had to do another product survey.

After that we watched just commercials for a bit. Then for the next hour the moderator guided us through an exhaustive questionaire about the different products in the commercials. I've never answered so many questions about how often I buy, what brands do I buy, how many times I eat, how many times I think I will eat, how often I think I will buy hot breakfast cereal. We did this for toilet paper and shampoo and other crap.

The next day when I'm at work I get a call from UNKNOWN on my cell phone. I don't usually answer calls from unknown sources but they kept calling every 10 minutes. I finally answer and it's from a company working for Television Preview. I'm then questioned extensively about the commercials I saw the night before. What kind of shampoo was it? What were the girls doing? What kind of formula was in the shampoo? What color were the labels?

Finally I tell the guy that I signed uo to talk about the pilots and not the products, but he tells me that his job is to only discuss the commercials.

I'm pretty ticked about this whole experience. My guess is that Television Preview buys some really old pilots that have been passed on that will never be aired, but have recognizable actors. They then lure people in under the guise of it being a test group for tv shows when it's really an extremely detailed product survey.

Basically Television Preview is making off like bandits because all they have to pay for is a large room while they gain lucrative product information that they sell. The participants in exchange use up their Saturday night watching 2 horrible shows and spending a couple of hours filling out surveys on toothpaste and then get harrassed the next day. And the only refreshments they provided were pitchers of water because "they found that actual snacks were too distracting" (and cost money).

If you get an invitation from Television Preview in the mail, take a dump in it and mark "return to sender."