asscociated press file photo
Denise Brown
OUTFOXED: The family of Nicole Brown Simpson claimed yesterday that the News Corp., parent company of Fox and Regan Books, tried to buy their silence in advance of the broadcast of a two-hour TV special and book devoted to Simpson’s ex-husband, O.J. Simpson, explaining how he would have murdered his ex-wife and her friend Ron Goldman.
“They wanted to offer us millions of dollars. Millions of dollars for, like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry’ money. But they were still going to air the show,” Denise Brown, Nicole’s sister, told the Associated Press. “We just thought, ‘Oh my God.’ What they’re trying to do is trying to keep us quiet, trying to make this like hush money, trying to go around the civil verdict, giving us this money to keep our mouths shut.”
Simpson lost a civil suit filed against him by Goldman’s family, but has kept the $33.5 million US judgment against him tied up in litigation for years. “I would like nothing better than to straighten out some things that have been mischaracterized,” Simpson told AP. “But I think I’m legally muzzled at this point.”
Both the TV special and the book were cancelled early this week, after a dozen Fox affiliates pledged not to air the show, and several book chains, including Borders, had promised to either give all the profits from the book to charity or not carry the book at all. Even Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly blasted the network, telling viewers to boycott any company that advertised on the show.
If I Did It — the name of both the book and TV special — was scheduled to air over two nights, right at the end of November sweeps week, and was expected to pull massive ratings. If you believe the AP story, which was carried in Variety and other outlets, it was the potential loss of ad revenue that might have swayed News Corp. to pull the show, as much as any unexpected outbreak of moral queasiness.
“I really don’t think there would have been very many advertisers who would have been willing to participate in this show,” Brad Adgate of the ad buying firm Horizon Media told AP. With no advertisers, the show would have been ignored by Nielsen, and would have done nothing to help Fox’s dismal fall numbers, Adgate added.
Fox has had an unusually bad fall season.
“We are now in our annual flailing cycle,” said Preston Beckman, senior VP for strategic program planning at Fox, in an interview with Mediaweek magazine last week.
At this rate, Jack Bauer had better capture Osama bin Laden by the end of the next season of 24, and the upcoming American Idol needs to discover the next Elvis, Sinatra, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim and Wayne Newton if Fox hopes to halfway redeem itself after this fall’s spectacular miscalculations.
