Not the Usual ‘20/20’ Interview

The story behind ABC News’ heavily hyped interview with Monica Lewinsky tonight is turning out to be almost as fascinating as what the interview subject herself will have to say--especially since many highlights have already been leaked, from a tape that the network believes was stolen.

ABC has gone to enormous lengths for Barbara Walters’ interview with the former White House intern who set off a presidential crisis, from entering into a number of unusual arrangements about how the interview will be used to extraordinary security measures. And when unauthorized excerpts from the interview appeared on the front page of the New York Daily News Tuesday, potentially damaging viewership in New York and maybe elsewhere, it was clear others see the interview as just as valuable.

Both ABC and Britain’s Channel Four, which paid for its own session with Lewinsky, took enormous steps to protect their interviews, conducted Feb. 20 and 21, respectively. ABC used special cameras to keep the tapes in safe hands; Channel Four, meanwhile, sent videotapes of its interview, airing Thursday, to worldwide broadcasters by cumbersome courier, instead of using instantaneous transmission by satellites, to avoid video pirates.

Despite the efforts, however, ABC was having to deal with the reality that the leaks were not just in the usual dribs and drabs designed to whet the audience’s appetite. ABC sent the Daily News a “cease and desist” order Monday night, and considered getting an injunction to stop the publication of the excerpts, taken from the first 60 minutes of the three-hour interview sessions, which the newspaper got from a tape that showed up anonymously. Spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said ABC still hasn’t ruled out subsequent legal action.

In a statement, the network said it “deeply regrets that someone illegally obtained a portion of the unedited version” of the interview and gave it to the Daily News. “Our editorial process has been compromised by the illegal and irresponsible actions of some unknown person. Every news organization has the right to determine whether to publish, when to publish and how much to publish of interviews or other information it has gathered. We will pursue all appropriate legal avenues to determine who was responsible for the theft and to ensure that appropriate action is taken.” Daily News executives declined immediate comment.

ABC told people in the industry that the high-quality tape was likely leaked by a disgruntled employee who is a member of the National Assn. of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians. NABET and ABC have been locked in a several-month battle over a new contract, and last week the network went ahead and implemented the new contract, over NABET objections, after declaring negotiations at an impasse. A NABET spokeswoman said “the union had absolutely nothing to do with this.” ABC’s Murphy said the network “doesn’t want to point fingers at anyone,” but she noted that only a small number of people have access to the material.

Last week, the Washington Post also printed a number of juicy moments from the interview, supplied, the paper said, by someone who had been in the room when the sit-down took place.

ABC is counting on a large viewer turnout, which would give the network a much-needed boost for the last day of the February sweeps period, in which ABC is running third. After deciding to run the interview at a full two hours, ABC began asking advertisers for $750,000 to $800,000 per 30-second commercial, five times its usual ad rate. Advertising industry executives said that while several sponsors signed on at very high prices, ABC was having more difficulty selling the remaining ads at that price. ABC declined to comment.

At whatever price they paid, advertisers are taking a risk: Regular network programming is sold with a guarantee that the show will reach a certain number of people or the advertiser will get free makeup ads, but the Lewinsky interview has no guarantee. The trade paper the Myers Report said ABC was estimating for advertisers that the show would draw 45% of those households watching TV tonight; many advertisers are estimating that the program will fall far short of that figure.

In an era when tabloid news organizations routinely throw huge cash enticements at big interview prey, ABC News has boasted that the interview with Lewinsky was landed the old-fashioned way: ABC offered the most attractive forum and Lewinsky agreed.

But without a number of unusual concessions, ABC wouldn’t have gotten the interview, including the rights to the international distribution of the Lewinsky interview. Normally, ABC would sell the interview itself to news organizations worldwide, or it would have included the interview in packages of “20/20” episodes it sells. Such ancillary rights have become so important in an era when networks are facing shrinking profit margins that ABC actually explored selling its Lewinsky interview internationally with a payment for the former White House intern built into the deal. But ABC ultimately backed away from it for economic reasons rather than journalistic concerns, said a person familiar with the situation.

For Lewinsky, however, the international rights were worth much, much more. According to people familiar with the situation, Lewinsky’s handlers were seeking a total of $1 million from the sale of the international TV interview rights--and she is expected to get it under the deal that was struck with Britain’s Channel Four.

The channel agreed to pay Lewinsky $660,000 upfront, of which more than half was for its own interview by the respected interviewer Jon Snow. The remainder, according to people familiar with the situation, was an advance against whatever Channel Four could get through international sales, with Channel Four keeping 25% of those sales; with Lewinsky reaping 75%, minus expenses. About 26 countries, from Australia to Turkey, have signed on.

R. Bernard Macleod, managing director of Channel Four International, declined to say how much his company would make, except to call it “the deal of the century.” He also declined to discuss the arrangements with Lewinsky.

ABC says it agreed to the deal because it wouldn’t have been able to get the interview otherwise. “They obviously need to make money,” said Murphy, adding that the arrangement doesn’t violate network standards and that ABC has made a similar concession in the past when it interviewed former mobster Sammy “The Bull” Gravano and the parents of septuplets.

ABC also made a number of other arrangements that maximized revenue potential for Lewinsky. It agreed to a single airing of the interview, and it agreed to limit the promotional excerpts it would put on its own air. Moreover, it agreed to give Channel Four two weeks’ notice of when ABC planned to air its interview; without that notice, Channel Four could have renegotiated its own deal. Channel Four was allowed to schedule its own interview beginning one hour after ABC’s. Both declined comment.

To be sure, ABC’s arrangement is very little compared to the other enticements reportedly thrown at Lewinsky, and other mainstream news organizations say they would agree to them, as well.

Mainstream news organizations “are very mindful of the negative publicity about paying for news and are trying very hard to hold the line, and to the best of my knowledge, so far they have,” says Marvin Kalb, director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, which studies the press. “When one examines all of the lapses of journalism in the Monica episode, this is the least of them.”

*

* Barbara Walters’ interview with Monica Lewinsky airs on “20/20” from 9 to 11 tonight on ABC.