The stars of American television can breathe a little easier when they stroll down the red carpet at the Emmy Awards this fall. Fashion cops Joan and Melissa Rivers won’t be there waiting to spring on them.
Three weeks after the veteran comedian and her daughter announced they were leaving the E! Entertainment Television for a lot more money at the TV Guide Channel, it turns out E! still holds exclusive rights to red-carpet Emmy coverage under a contract with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
As a result, TV Guide acknowledged on Wednesday that it will have to sit out the first big event that Joan and Melissa were hired to host for the cable channel as part of a three-year deal that has been valued at between $6 million and $8 million.
E! does not have exclusive pre-show coverage deals for other major entertainment awards, such as the Oscars or the Grammys.
TV Guide and the Academy said they were trying to reach an accommodation for the doyennes of the red carpet, but E! was not involved in those talks, officials for all sides said.
“Joan and Melissa have a great fan base -- they personify the red carpet, and their fans are not going to get to see them at the Emmys,” said Chris Levesque, a spokeswoman for Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc., which owns the channel. “We’d absolutely like to be covering the Emmys, and we’ll continue to explore all of our options.”
Fresh faces soughtThe situation left Hollywood wondering who, if anyone, might try filling the high heels of the mother-daughter team famed for their tart-tongued critiques of celebrity designer debacles on live cable TV.
Comcast Corp.-controlled E!, which had been home to the Rivers duo for the past nine years, said it plans to hire fresh faces to anchor its Emmy arrivals coverage on Sept. 19 ahead of the ABC network telecast of the awards show itself.
A TV Guide insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, insisted that E!’s exclusive Emmy contract, which runs through 2005, was not overlooked by the channel -- a gaffe that would have been the business equivalent of a major fashion faux pas.
“We’re TV guys. Our whole business is about promoting television and keeping viewers aware of television. So I think we were just optimistic that we could work something out,” the source told Reuters.
A spokesman for Joan Rivers said the comedian was away in Europe and not immediately available for comment.
TV Guide, meanwhile, denied that this year’s Emmy shutout had spoiled its plans for Joan and Melissa Rivers, whose deal was seen as a centerpiece of the channel’s efforts to expand its original programming.
“The Emmys are only one part of our overall programming plans for Joan and Melissa,” Levesque said. “They’re a huge brand, and we made a long-term relationship with them to develop a number of different programming offerings.”