COMPANY MANN: When Lou Mann, Capitol Records’...

COMPANY MANN: When Lou Mann, Capitol Records’ senior vice president of sales, walked into the Tower Records store on Sunset Monday to check on displays for the label’s new Frank Sinatra “Duets” album, he spotted a Channel 4 news crew shooting a piece about customer reaction to the project.

Ever the record executive, Mann grabbed eight copies of the album and rushed to the cash register. The news crew spotted the eager shopper and sped over for an interview.

“I told them I wanted to get down here before they were sold out,” Mann told Pop Eye. “I told them I was buying one for my father, one for my wife, one for my brother and the others for my friends.”

The crew never learned of Mann’s identity and ran the clip of him on Monday’s 5, 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts.

When alerted by Pop Eye to the identity of the customer, KNBC News producer Yvone Guevera was not amused.

“We were just trying to get reactions of people buying CDs,” she said. “He should have said who he was.”