Although Montel Williams’s talk show was canceled this year, it seemed to have been reincarnated last week at a studio in Fairfield, N.J. Mr. Williams had gathered a live audience, self-help experts and people who had dealt with problems like the death of a daughter, and he stood before them, gesticulating, tearing up and nodding thoughtfully.

After almost an hour of discussing the problem of depression, Mr. Williams presented the guests with the answer to their problems: a set of books he had written. In other episodes, he suggested solving various issues by buying a debt-relief kit, a rotisserie grill or a blender. For this was not a television show. It was an infomercial, “Living Well With Montel,” and Mr. Williams is being paid depending on how well the products sell.

Mr. Williams has put his “Living Well” brand on several new products, and he will soon promote other brands, too, like books from Men’s Health magazine. He is paid no salary, only a share of profits that depends on how much he sells. (For now, the products are available only through a toll-free number and a Web site.)

Starting last weekend, Tristar Products, which owns the production and the merchandise, began showing the hourlong infomercial on national cable channels and broadcast networks, in the late-night and early morning hours when infomercials reign.

Keith Mirchandani, the chief executive of Tristar, said he would spend about $2.5 million a week buying advertising time for the infomercial, and expected to sell about $5 million worth a week of the merchandise Mr. Williams promotes in the production.

In an interview, Mr. Williams said combining a talk-show format with sales was a logical extension of product placement, in which advertisers pay producers or networks to feature their merchandise, like a Coca-Cola cup seen on Fox’s “American Idol.” It is meant to advertise products subtly, even if viewers skip traditional commercials.

“Every single television program is trying to figure out a way to do integrated advertising,” Mr. Williams, 52, said. “There may be those that throw stones, but then I say, ‘Hold up a mirror.’ ” He added that “even the soap operas have integrated cans, keys, cars.”

Mr. Williams is receiving a percentage of all the product sales. Tristar, an infomercial marketer based in Fairfield, Conn., that sells the Ab Roller and the Jack LaLanne juicer, owns the show and the products sold on it. (For existing products, Tristar creates special versions, like a two-pack of Mr. Williams’s books, that are available only through the show.)

Mr. Mirchandani said Tristar had a straightforward approach to the products it would sell.

“It’s vanity,” Mr. Mirchandani said. “If you can make someone’s life easier or faster, and give them instant results, that’s what they want.”

The company’s formula is to introduce a problem and then offer a solution, Mr. Mirchandani said. For example, in one episode, Mr. Williams identifies childhood obesity as a problem, then offers his solution: a $199 blender that can make healthy soups and smoothies.

While talk-show hosts have long plugged their books or their guests’ books, Mr. Williams’s promotions are a departure, with plugs for items like a fleece blanket with arms called the Toasty Wrap. “Are they a leap?” Mr. Williams said. “Let’s take a look at it. I watched ‘The View’ the other day, and they’re passing out iPods.”

“I don’t think it’s a leap at all, because he’s identifying problems the American public are having,” Mr. Mirchandani said. The problem the Toasty Wrap solved, he said, was one of high heating bills.

Mr. Williams said he was careful about choosing which products to endorse. “These are products that can make peoples’ lives either easier or help them live well,” he said.

“People right now are figuring out how to make ends meet,” he said, adding that he tried to price his products reasonably. They range from $19.95 to $199. He took exception to a suggestion that a $199 blender was not a necessity in a tough economy.

If you change your diet and eat more vegetables and fruits, you can change your health,” he said. “The truth is, when you say you don’t need something like a juicer, a juicer is what’s kept me alive.”

Though this would seem a difficult time to sell products, infomercial companies tend to do well during recessions, said A. J. Khubani, the chief executive of a rival infomercial production firm, Telebrands. His company has set sales records in the last three months, he said.

Mr. Khubani said he thought it was because advertising time had become inexpensive, which means he can run ads more frequently. And when unemployment is high, he said, people have more time to watch television.

The infomercial that was taped last week was intended to sell two of Mr. Williams’s books about depression. Producers had filled the audience with beauticians from Staten Island, sales representatives from Mary Kay, and with men and women who had responded to ticket offers on Essence.com, a site devoted to black women, among other places.

The offer did not state the tickets were for an infomercial; instead, it described a “limited TV engagement” for Mr. Williams that would “focus on issues concerning men, women and families.”

Mr. Williams is using many of the same tactics that he did on “The Montel Williams Show,” which ran for 17 years, produced and syndicated by CBS. During that time, he was criticized for exploiting guests. On many days, he revealed the results of paternity tests on the air. In one episode, the show featured a woman telling her sister that she had been sleeping with the sister’s boyfriend of 14 years.

“There’s not one of them I’m not proud of,” he said. “I don’t know about putting people in vulnerable positions on national television. I never paid a guest.” (His show did pay the betrayed sister a settlement after she sued for $10 million.)

Last week, the audience seemed excited to be in Mr. Williams’s presence. Men and women were nodding, rocking and murmuring as he exhorted them to think positively. His voice rising, he told the audience members to close their eyes and talk to themselves, aloud, about a special moment in their lives. Almost everyone complied.

“Appreciate who the heck you are!” Mr. Williams shouted, to applause. “Thank God he gave you a chance to wake up!”

A moment later, he mentioned he would be selling his two books for the price of one on that day’s episode.

Charlie James III, of Tacoma, Wash., was in the audience because his son’s mother was waiting backstage to talk to Mr. Williams about her depression, he said.

He had wanted to appear on the infomercial, too, “to help people with the same problem,” he said. The fact that the production was selling products did not bother him, he said. “Everyone’s got to make money somehow,” Mr. James said. “It’s better to make it trying to help people than not so.”

Product placement has its share of critics, who worry that advertising has too much influence on the content of television programming.

Now that Mr. Williams is promoting products not just for ratings but for profits — and using real people with real problems to help sell those products — critics have raised questions about disclosure and ethics.

The blurring of lines between television advertising and television entertainment has concerned advocates like Robert Weissman, the managing director of Commercial Alert, a Washington group that has lobbied for stricter regulation of product placement.

“One issue is the deception issue, and whether viewers sufficiently understand that they’re watching an advertisement, even if it’s an entertaining advertisement,” Mr. Weissman said.

He said he was also troubled by people discussing their problems on this kind of program. “These people, it sounds like, are being exploited,” he said.

Carol Bernstein, the vice president of the American Psychiatric Association and an associate professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, said that issue was also of concern to her.

It might “devalue patients who have these illnesses and make it seem like it’s just part of a commodity,” she said. “That’s really a social and societal question. Personally, I would find that offensive. I don’t think this is something that is really appropriate for marketing.”

Mr. Mirchandani said he hoped that by spring, stores like Costco and Wal-Mart would be selling the Living Well branded products, though he had not yet approached those retailers.

Mr. Williams said he could envision a Living Well network, or Living Well aisles in stores.

He objected to the notion that his latest venture was solely commercial. “I’m dedicated to helping people,” he said. “Too often we do things because our motivation is in the wrong direction.”

While the infomercial is not a charity effort, he said, “neither was ‘The Montel Williams Show.’ Believe me, CBS made an inordinate amount of money,” he said.

“I’ve promoted product from here to eternity for CBS and I didn’t share in the profits,” he said. “The entire move of the media has been to push people in this direction.”