Quest for ‘the get’ intensifies

The six-page “partnership proposal” was very specific. ABC and “Entertainment Tonight” wanted the exclusive interview with Russell Crowe pegged to the opening of his new movie “Master and Commander” and here’s what they offered. From ABC News, a “possible” Diane Sawyer profile for “Primetime Thursday,” which “would air prior to the junket” (a several-day publicity event) and “be heavily promoted across ABC programming,” as well as on “ET”; two “Good Morning America” segments, one featuring Crowe.

As for “Entertainment Tonight,” it would contribute a “Master and Commander” month leading up to the film’s Nov. 14 release, and after the press junket (which was in late October) a “two-part Russell Crowe interview segment with the ‘ET’ talent of Mr. Crowe’s choosing.” There could be a “sexy photo shoot” with the male stars and “ET” correspondent Maria Menounos on the beach. And that’s just for starters. If the movie people want lighthearted segments on “special visitors to the set” or birthdays that were celebrated during production, that can be accommodated too.

In the end, the interview -- known in the TV news business as “the get” -- is slated just for “Good Morning America” (two parts) and “ET” but not “Primetime Thursday.” But the proposal shows how the mega-corporations that control today’s news and entertainment are rewriting the rules in the game of “getting the get,” even one as routine as a big star with a big movie to promote. From Barbara Walters’ exclusive interview with embattled domestic diva Martha Stewart on ABC’s “20/20” Friday to former Iraq POW Jessica Lynch next week and pop singer Britney Spears, many “gets” will be hard to avoid in coming days as the competitive November ratings period plays out.

And with CBS’ “The Reagans” miniseries now yanked off the mid-November calendar, former First Lady Nancy Reagan moves to the front of the line of personalities to “get.”

As competition has escalated in recent years, grabbing the get has become no longer a matter of writing a sympathetic letter to a crime victim or sending a cheese platter to woo a celebrity. With profit and bragging rights at stake, and multimillion-dollar salaries to justify, news organizations are crafting their pitches by offering tonnage, wrapping up syndicated entertainment shows, cable news channels, radio and network morning programs into one promotional wallop that theoretically will drive ratings up on all the shows involved while ensuring that few viewers can escape the tease to tune-in for the main event in prime time.

Scramble for interviews

Entertainment and news -- once strictly separate, and with radically different standards of how interviews should be conducted -- are increasingly becoming one big blur, raising questions of whether the news programs are tarnishing their reputations. The scramble among the highly paid news stars to land interviews with the public personalities du jour almost inevitably contributes to a growing public skepticism about the media.

Academics and some media old guard object to the mixing of news and celebrity culture, like Morley Safer, one of the veterans of CBS’ “60 Minutes,” who in a September panel discussion said all of this clamoring by various television reporters for the right to interview the hottest new diva “just becomes kind of a silly joke, something out of ‘Saturday Night Live.’ ” Sure enough, CBS has largely stayed away from “get” journalism, in part perhaps because it doesn’t have a news star like NBC’s Katie Couric or ABC’s Sawyer or Walters.

But most of the rest are competing in this intense contest, and nothing points to how much the stakes have risen so much as the spoiler tactics the losers are turning to like never before.

NBC News is widely credited with changing the rules in July, when it parlayed a joint interview with Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, conducted by Pat O’Brien of “Access Hollywood,” into a ratings bonanza. It was teased across “Access,” an entertainment program that is owned by NBC, as well as NBC News’ “Today” show and MSNBC before it finally landed as a prime-time special, drawing 10.6 million viewers. It wasn’t the first time “Dateline” had tapped “Access Hollywood” to land an interview, but this time rivals took notice.

Concerned about falling behind, ABC News, which can package Walters’ syndicated entertainment show “The View” and even “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” into the mix, in addition to “GMA,” “Primetime” and “20/20,” tried to counter by forming an alliance with “Access” rival “Entertainment Tonight,” even though that show is a sister property of CBS.

“It’s no longer just a ‘GMA’ interview or ‘Today’ show interview or ‘CBS Early Show,’ ” said Alan Nierob, of the publicity firm Rogers & Cowan, who is currently fielding a flood of requests for his client Mel Gibson, tied to the February release of his controversial movie “The Passion of Christ.” “It’s now the entire network that gets involved. It’s a whole different dynamic.”

But the news producers also say interview subjects and their handlers are demanding the treatment. Once, the networks merely told the handlers which anchor might do the interview and what their take was on it, said one executive who asked not to named, and the interview subject chose. Now even “gets” with news makers and not just celebrities are increasingly the subject of complicated negotiations, ranging from what night of the week it will air to whether the network will take out ads and how many, as well as what kind of tidbits will be offered to affiliate stations to extend the publicity machine further.

Like entertainment interviews, which are often tied to a new movie or album, newsmaker interviews are usually linked to the publication of a book. And “sometimes they have an unrealistic idea of what would be appropriate or good for them,” said Betsy West, CBS News’ senior vice president of prime time. “I also think there can be overkill sometimes.”

When Phyllis McGrady, ABC News’ senior vice president overseeing prime-time newsmagazines, got word this summer that NBC was trying to do package deals, she said she scoffed at the concept, assuming that the Hollywood studios and book publishers who largely determine who gets what would prefer to pick and choose shows themselves, the better to control which audiences they reach. But “I was actually wrong,” she said, and so the network quickly moved to solidify its partnership with “ET.” “I said, if this is something you’re looking for, don’t discount ABC,” McGrady recalled.

The Hollywood studios, in particular, she said, want “one-stop shopping” for stars, so they don’t have to do multiple interviews. Additionally, she said, with so many movies competing for audiences’ attentions, the studios “try to create a big event” around the launch, something that the networks have been happy to help with, by flooding their airwaves with promotions for an interview.

McGrady said she’s comfortable with the practices because the news division stays in control. “I feel there is nothing that blurs the line between entertainment and news in any of the things that we’re doing,” she said, noting that, unlike with NBC News, “anything we will be doing will be with ABC News talent. It will not be Pat O’Brien.”

David Corvo, executive producer of “Dateline NBC,” said that, even though O’Brien isn’t employed by NBC News and not required to follow its standards, “when he works for us, he does.” Moreover, he said, “we don’t make agreements about the content of an interview, or if they ask us to, we say no.”

Trade-offs questioned

But the additional perks aren’t just limited to free movie promotion or dictating which interviewer is asking the questions. “Everyone is looking for a backhand payment,” said one booker for a major interviewer, trade-offs that for some critics are coming close to paying for an interview, which is prohibited by the ethical standards of the network news divisions.

Blurring the lines even more are the ripped-from-the-headlines made-for-TV movies that this weekend, at least, are airing concurrent with the news interviews in the cases of the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case and former POW Lynch. A CBS movie about Smart will go head to head Sunday with NBC’s Lynch movie, even as ABC News has begun to dribble out tidbits from an interview Sawyer did with Lynch that airs in its entirety Tuesday.

NBC had ordered its unauthorized movie on Lynch before she decided to do a book, and at one point the network offered her money to turn the movie into an authorized version at the same time as its news division was seeking an interview. The move didn’t work; the interview went to ABC’s Sawyer, and NBC’s movie is still unauthorized. An NBC News spokeswoman said NBC’s news and entertainment divisions operate separately and NBC News doesn’t pay for interviews.

CBS, meanwhile, paid the Smarts for use of their story in Sunday’s movie, but in exchange the network expected to at least be considered for the first news interview with the family, tied to the Smarts’ new book. Instead, the Smarts’ publisher preemptively went with NBC’s Katie Couric.

So CBS struck back, in the kind of reaction that has also become a mark of the new competitiveness. With a Smart interview from the movie’s electronic press kit already done, CBS Entertainment (and not the news division) packaged a quick special into the “first” interview, besting NBC by a week. Oprah Winfrey, who was supposed to have the second Smart interview following Couric, then got into the act, giving ABC’s “Good Morning America” excerpts of the “Oprah” chat, which also aired days before Couric’s interview.

Suzanne Herz, a spokeswoman for Doubleday, which published the Smart book, called the events a “circus.” The Lynch team is on guard for a similar end run. Paul Bogaards, the Knopf publicity executive who is overseeing the release of Lynch’s book and the publicity plan surrounding it, was in West Virginia two weeks ago working on last-minute preparations when he heard that a rival network, upset that Sawyer got the first interview, had sent a camera crew to knock on the Lynches’ door unexpectedly and grab the first interview “on the fly.”

“I told Greg Lynch, if somebody shows up at the door, to shoot first and ask questions later,” Bogaards said. “I find that kind of behavior untenable, unconscionable.”

For all the nasty back-and-forth it engenders, the value of the competitive scramble to the networks is a matter of some debate. ABC’s McGrady says several of the “big event bonanzas” can help her internally when ABC News wants to run an investigation that won’t get high ratings but is “very important.” But CBS’ West points out that even those high ratings aren’t guaranteed. Ed Bradley’s interview with Mary J. Blige on “60 Minutes” and Dan Rather’s Toby Keith interview on “60 Minutes II,” both airing last week, each drew more viewers than Couric’s much-hyped stand-alone hour with the Smart family on NBC. “The specials often aren’t that special from a ratings point of view,” said CBS’ West.