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Hollywood Spin
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TCA Titters
E! Networks President and CEO Ted Harbert was all set for a coming out party at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. Then the laughter started.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
By Richard Horgan
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Michael Caufield/Wireimage.com
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E!'s Fake Hollywood Story
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When Oprah Winfrey’s 90-minute primetime television chat with Michael Jackson attracted 62 million viewers back in 1993, ABC-TV president Ted Harbert opined somewhat famously that, ‘This is why God invented network television.’ Now, some ten years later, television critics gathered in Los Angeles for the TCA winter press tour must be wondering, ‘Is this why God invented cable?’
First, E! Networks President and CEO Ted Harbert announces a Style Network show called Craft Corner Death Match, in which women will go at each other Iron Chef-style by attacking projects with various arts and craft implements. Then, with a straight face, he says the following of his plans to offer nightly re-enactments of the Michael Jackson trial beginning on Monday, January 31st: ‘I'm a person who believes strongly that what we need to bring to TV is taste.’
As the roomful of TV critics began to laugh, Harbert continued: ‘I understand why you're laughing, but I also understand that putting shows on that people want to watch is what the job is. The tone of the broadcast is going to be deadly serious.’
This is not the way a TCA presentation is supposed to go. You don’t want reporters such as the Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes writing the next day that both Harbert and a representative from British Sky Broadcasting – E!’s partner in the MJ endeavor – looked visibly shaken in the face of a real-life laugh track.
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Albert Ortega/Wireimage.com
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Harbert (l) in 2003
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But it’s hard to feel sorry for them, or side with the former ABC-TV golden boy’s statement, ‘I reject out of hand the idea we're goofing on Michael Jackson,’ when - on the same day - Sylvester Stallone’s ex-wife Brigitte Nielsen and Australian feminist Germaine Greer came to blows on the UK reality TV show Celebrity Big Brother.
When Harbert first took over for Mindy Herman at E! last summer, the morale of the troops was sky high. Here after all was a man who had triumphed at ABC, NBC and Fox Television. But after six months of knocking heads with the powers that bE!, the best he can come up with is a King of Pop lookalike and women wielding glue guns? Or Star Jones-Reynold on the red carpet?
The only ray of hope for E! at the TCA confab came courtesy of the reality and celebrity genres. Although the competition structure of The Entertainer, its new reality show starring Wayne Newton, is nothing to write home about, the charisma and kitsch of Mr. Vegas is more akin to the kind of thing today’s channel surfers are looking for. Meanwhile, Hollywood Poker Night - a weekly one-hour series launching in March – will have stars such as Seth Green, Wilmer Valderrama and Andy Dick shuffling the deck alongside their respective best friends.
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Michael Caufield/Wireimage.com
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Entertainer star Newton
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But really, does any of this sound half as interesting as Showtime's much anticipated Fat Actress starring Kirstie Alley, or HBO’s Michael Patrick King June offering The Comeback? In that one, Lisa Kudrow plays a B-level sitcom star who chooses to put herself through the reality TV ringer in order to revive her flagging career. Heck, even Oxygen’s Fred Willard-hosted show Mr. Romance, all about the search for a new Fabio to grace the covers of those Harlequin romance novels, sounds more appealing than the above somewhat tired retreads of Vegas Showgirls: Nearly Famous and Celebrity Poker Showdown.
In a related development, both CNN Headline News and ESPN announced at the TCA that they are boosting their entertainment news coverage. The former plans to offer an hour-long edition of Showbiz Today each night in prime time, while the sports network is looking to chronicle the twain of sports and entertainment celebrity in a new half-hour called ESPN Hollywood.
Which begs the question: How much entertainment news can one saturated society endure? It’s a topic we have examined here before. But between the glut of reality and the glut of entertainment news coverage, we have a suggestion for Mr. Harbert. Take a gander back in your video archives to Greg Kinnear’s Talk Soup, a legitimate predecessor to Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. That’s the kind of planned Michael Jackson trial coverage TCA members should be writing about this week.
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Jeffrey Mayer/Wireimage.com
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Still a big Internet search name
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Perhaps another hint of where Harbert is headed is the fact that someone like Brooke Burke is returning to E! for the Golden Globes pre-show. Could a reality show examining the home life of Jules Asner and paramour Steven Soderbergh be far behind? Or how about a return in some form of Steve Kmetko, a guy who – before he was squashed into the background by Herman – seemed to be itching to go full bore for the funny bone.
Since the currency of E! is celebrity and personality, it seems like a no-brainer to copy something like ESPN’s Dream Job by turning the task of finding the next flamboyant red carpet reporter into an ongoing talent search. Or, if Harbert himself is up to it, perhaps he can figure out some sort of Wonderful World of E! showcase equivalent that allows him the opportunity for fireside chat intros, a la Michael Eisner and Walt Disney.
For now, a program like Jackie Collins Presents is symptomatic of the problems with the mishmash roster Harbert inherited from Herman. Collins is the right personality; it’s the wrong vehicle. When you have someone like Collins, with all of her contacts and anecdotes, it’s crazy to have her throw to pre-taped segments. Give her a Charlie Rose set; put her in the living rooms of some of her Bel Air neighbors. ABC has Desperate Housewives, so let her conjure up Hollywood Housewives.
To his credit, Harbert realizes that programming a successful TV network is a long-term endeavor. Even Brandon Tartikoff failed miserably out of the gate when he first came to NBC, taking several years to hit his stride with signature shows. E!’s current lynchpins, E! True Hollywood Story and Howard Stern, are respectively threatened by a finite number of subjects and SIRIUS satellite radio. Meanwhile, Dr. 90210 is no Nip/Tuck, the third season of Project Greenlight was snapped up by Bravo and no one cared about Star Dates.
At the 2004 summer TCA gathering, Harbert was asked what his vision of E! was. ‘Our network’s ratings are flat,’ he replied. ‘We need to get into some more story-form type shows. E! is a great brand: advertisers love it; the audience loves it. We need to do more and better."
The real Wayne Newton is a step in the right direction; the fake Michael Jackson is not.
[Every Wednesday, Richard Horgan’s FilmStew.com opinion column “Hollywood Spin” takes a look at a notable entertainment industry personality, PR trend or salient industry topic. To reach the author, please click here. To comment on this week’s topic, please go to our Hollywood Spin Discussion Board.]
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