Auto Dealers Protest KCBS Report on Car-Sale Scams
An upcoming KCBS Channel 2 investigative series--one of the high-profile local news stories that tend to surface during sweeps periods--is proving to be dicey before it even airs.
The series titled “What Some Car Dealers Don’t Want You to Know” details how several car salesmen have cheated customers and has driven some auto dealers to threaten the station with withdrawal of their advertising. The investigation was conducted by Joel Grover, head of the station’s Special Investigations Unit and the reporter behind KCBS’ award-winning investigations “Behind the Kitchen,” which exposed unsanitary conditions at restaurants, and “License for Sale,” which showed how Department of Motor Vehicles employees illegally sold drivers licenses. Both series resulted in widespread reform.
KCBS President and General Manager John Severino said he has received calls from auto dealers angered over the station’s promotion of the series, which will start Sunday on its 11 p.m. newscast and run through the week.
The dealers were particularly incensed that the series was promoted last weekend by a banner that read “Car Buyers Beware” trailing behind a plane flying all over Los Angeles and feared that the report would reflect negatively on the whole industry, not just those implicated in the report, Severino said.
According to Severino, one executive representing a group of auto dealerships told him that “we spend about $250,000 a month on advertising on your station, and we don’t appreciate this.” Other unhappy dealers also called to remind Severino of how much they spend on advertising, he said.
“There were those who thought that the promotion condemned the entire industry,” said Severino, who pulled the airplane-banner promotion and adjusted the wording on the commercials: “I thought they had a point, that the promotion painted a pretty broad brush. We pulled the airplane out of fairness.”
Severino said he told a group of dealers that he felt the series was responsible and fair, and that he would include any advertiser withdrawal in the news story.
“Although we may take a shot financially, this is something that I’m proud of, and I’m happy we did it,” said Severino. “We have positioned ourselves as ‘the station of the people,’ and we have to live up to it. We feel like, as in the LAPD, there are a few bad apples in the car industry. The vast majority of them are good.”
Representatives for the Greater Los Angeles New Car Dealers Assn., which met with Severino to protest the series, declined comment.
Station staffers also hope that the series will provide a much-needed boost in viewership. KBCS has traditionally sagged in the ratings. In February, the last tracking period, the station’s 11 p.m. news trailed rivals KNBC and KABC. Under Severino, who was given oversight of the station in July when he was also named president of CBS’ station division, KCBS has adopted several new features, including the low-rated “Women 2 Women News” that airs at 4 p.m. weekdays, and consumer reports by gravel-voiced reporter Mike “Bogey” Boguslawski, who tells viewers he’s in their “corner.”
In the auto-scam series, the unit used undercover cameras and other techniques to show how dealers and customers would agree upon the price of a car, then a dealer would tack on as much as thousands of dollars of hidden additional costs onto the contract. Grover said the salesmen would intimidate buyers into paying the increased costs and that non-English-speaking customers were regular victims of the ploy.
Grover said he expected the new series to have far-reaching consequences. “What some of these car dealers did amounts to criminal behavior,” said Grover. “They used all these tricks and schemes to deceive their customers. There’s a good chance there’ll be criminal prosecutions.”
The car sales industry has long been the sacred cow, rarely investigated by broadcast or print media because of possible financial repercussions, Grover said. “I have been pitching this story for years,” he said. “A station manager at another station I worked at said, ‘Don’t go there.’ It’s just the touchiest investigative story to do.”
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* “What Some Car Dealers Don’t Want You to Know” begins Sunday on KCBS’ 11 p.m. newscast.
