ABC Makes Barter Deal for Michael Jackson Videos : Television: The network ran 10 commercials for his album in exchange for rights to music videos. News division chief says it had no part in the arrangement.

During the week that Diane Sawyer interviewed Michael Jackson in a highly rated interview on ABC News’ “PrimeTime Live,” the network ran 10 TV commercials promoting Jackson’s new album. The 30-second commercial spots--five of which ran in prime-time--were given for free by the network in exchange for the rights to air upcoming videos from Jackson’s album on ABC entertainment programming.

Executives at ABC News and ABC entertainment said in interviews that there was no connection between the highly sought-after interview and the advertising agreement. “ABC News made its own arrangements to interview Jackson,” ABC entertainment president Ted Harbert said. “The barter arrangement was part of our overall business interest in Jackson as an entertainer. The interview was completely separate.”

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The spots aired from June 15, the day after the ABC interview, through June 19, in anticipation of the release of Jackson’s new album, on June 21.

Paul Friedman, executive vice president of ABC News, said that he did not know about the advertising swap. “I was unaware of any deal to run commercials in return for the videos,” Friedman said. “The network apparently made a perfectly viable business deal [with the commercials]. It would only be a conflict of interest if we were involved in it--and we weren’t. I didn’t know anything about it.”

Harbert said that he began meeting with Jackson’s manager, Sandy Gallin, about numerous entertainment projects with Jackson last summer. “We talked about a range of TV programs and ideas related to the release of Michael’s new album,” said Harbert, who has had a longtime business relationship with Gallin, who is also the manager for ABC sitcom star Roseanne.

“In April, with the album ready for release, Sandy began talking seriously about Michael wanting to do an interview. At that point, I suggested he call [ABC News executive] Alan Wurtzel because an interview should be done by the news division.”

The arrangement for the advertising time was made after Jackson had agreed to do an interview with Sawyer, Harbert said. Some executives at other networks questioned why ABC would need to buy the rights to videos, which are usually released free to MTV.

Harbert said, “This is like [the Fox TV network] premiering Jackson’s [previous] videos. Some of these videos from the new album aren’t made yet. We intend to use them in our ‘TGIF’ concert series and other shows. And this is also part of a long-range discussion regarding rights to some of Jackson’s home movies and a possible retrospective of his work.”

At the same time that Harbert and Gallin were talking, ABC News executives said, ABC News already had begun to pursue an interview with Jackson. Sawyer and her producers put in their request for an interview 18 months ago. Sawyer said in a previous interview with The Times that there were no restrictions on what she could ask in the interview.

“ABC News had been pursuing Jackson for a long time,” ABC News spokeswoman Teri Everett said. “We got this interview on our own merits and made our own arrangements for the interview. There was no connection between Jackson’s conversations with entertainment and what we did in news.”

The question about the advertising spots “shows the complexity of transactions at a network, where you’ve got the business side making a business deal and the news side doing an interview,” said Everette Dennis, executive director of the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University.

“ABC News has a lot of integrity, and it sounds as if the two were working separately and independently. But a larger question for me is how much Michael Jackson benefited overall financially in his ‘damage control’ campaign--and why all the network news divisions were willing to devote so much time and resources to what he had to say.”

The interview--in which Sawyer asked Jackson and his wife, Lisa Marie Presley, about their marriage and about 1993 allegations of child molestation against Jackson--was seen by an estimated 60 million viewers.

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The interview, which was sought by nearly every TV interviewer from Ed Bradley and Maria Shriver to Barbara Walters, was generally seen as Jackson’s attempt to reform his image at a time when he is releasing his first album in four years.

The live, hourlong session included the network debut of Jackson’s video of “Scream,” Jackson’s first single from his new album. ABC News executives said the video was newsworthy and was one of the topics of the interview.

“ABC News had one of its best journalists ask a lot of tough questions of Michael Jackson,” Harbert said. In fact, after the interview, Harbert said, Jackson “expressed some displeasure” with some of Sawyer’s questions (Harbert would not say which) and he asked ABC to run “Scream” again, as part of its “TGIF” programming.

When the network refused, Harbert said, Jackson offered “Scream” and “Childhood,” the second video from the album, to run for free on NBC. NBC announced Friday that NBC will air the Jackson video “Scream,” at 8:30 tonight between two episodes of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” and it will air the world premiere of the “Childhood” video on July 3, also at 8:30 p.m.