The Media Interview

And the winner is - well, maybe “winner” isn’t the word because I personally don’t see getting an interview with Paris Hilton as anything to be proud of - CNN’s Larry King.

After ABC’s $100,000 offer for Hilton’s first post-jail TV interview was rejected, and NBC pulled out and denied any deal had been made, and the Hiltons started denying that they were seeking any money for any interview… the NY Times reported over the weekend that Paris will do an hour-long segment on Larry King’s show this Wednesday:

A spokeswoman for his program, Bridget Leininger, said yesterday that no money had been paid for the interview. “Larry King never pays for interviews,” she said.

What was interesting was that even after the Hilton’s said they would not take any money for photos and videos, including a $300,000 deal they’d set up with People magazine, ABC and NBC still turned down the interview.

The trick these days is that deals are made to purchase materials such as photos and videos that accompany an interview - that way, no one is technically paying for the interview. And where does Larry’s King’s show stand on that?

Ms. Leininger said she was unsure whether the program was going to use any photos and whether any fee would be paid to Getty Images, a photo agency that had previously made a deal to acquire rights to the first pictures of Ms. Hilton home from jail.