Fox’s big sweeps get is fast becoming a big public relations headache.
Nearly a week after the network announced that it was airing a special two-part interview with O.J. Simpson entitled “If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened,” it’s facing a harsh backlash from affiliates and potential viewers horrified at the idea of Simpson essentially confessing how he killed his ex-wife veiled in a cloud of hypotheticals.
The initial reaction to the show seemed to be that Fox had pulled off quite a coup and that the two-part interview would bring in big ratings.
But as details of Simpson’s new book emerged, and outraged viewers began voicing their disgust, there’s a new sense that not only will the special, and the book, bomb, but Fox may have damaged its newly respectable reputation in the process by harkening back to the days when it aired trash like “When Animals Attack.”
Fox has had no comment on the special since the day it was announced.
Over the past three days, nearly a dozen affiliates have backed out of airing the show. Others have expressed discomfort with the program and pledged to air public service ads about domestic violence during the two-parter airing at 9 p.m. Nov. 27 and 29.
Pappas Telecasting, Prime Cities Broadcasting and Lin Broadcasting, which between them own affiliates in Iowa, Nebraska and North Dakota, have pulled out of the special. Of the 190 or so remaining affiliates, some say they have received nasty emails and phone calls from outraged viewers.
Several station owners, including Sinclair Broadcasting, are still weighing whether to air the special, and more are expected to yank it before next Monday’s broadcast.
Meanwhile, public furor over the special is growing. More than 33,000 people have signed an online petition protesting both Fox’s special and Simpson’s upcoming HarperCollins book “If I Did It,” being released Nov. 30. The site, dontpayOJ.com, is organized by the family of Ronald Goldman, who was murdered along with Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson 12 years ago.
Simpson was acquitted of their killings in a criminal trial but later found liable in a civil suit, when he was ordered to pay millions to the families. He’s paid only a small piece and is trying to keep proceeds from the book from going to them.
Groups at Craigslist, Yahoo Answers and Petition Online are also calling for boycotts of Fox and any advertiser who appears on the special, though it’s hard to envision any doing so with the poisonous public reaction. More than 80 percent of respondents to a current online poll by the Virginian Pilot say that Fox stations should not air the special.
Even Bill O’Reilly, whose popular talk show airs on Fox News Channel, has pledged to boycott any advertisers who appear on the special, and Geraldo Rivera, who has a long and often controversial association with Fox, has condemned the interview.
Yet even so, Fox appears likely to go through with the special. Judith Regan, who is both publishing the book and conducting the interview, has been repositioning herself as a crusader against domestic violence whose only intent was to expose a wife beater. She says she sees “If I Did It” as Simpson’s confession.
Of course the greater question in all of this is why Simpson would bother. It’s doubtful he or his children will ever see the money from the book, which will become entangled in the courts for years as the Goldman and Brown families attempt to get their settlement money.
While Simpson is undoubtedly a media hound and wants the attention, the real reason may be even simpler: He got away with it and he wants to brag. That may turn off viewers most of all.
