News Corp

ReganBooks, known for Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star and José Canseco’s steroid exposé Juiced, has a long history of courting sensationalism. But the publisher—or more accurately, its parent company News Corp.—found the stopping point. Last week HarperCollins (owned by News Corp) announced that its imprint ReganBooks was to publish a book titled If I Did It by O.J. Simpson. The release would follow a two-part interview series set to air at the end of November sweeps on Fox (also owned by News Corp.).

The television tie-in immediately produced problems. Ratings and advertising revenues during sweeps help television networks set their advertising rates for the rest of the year. News Corp. decided to air the O.J. Simpson interview on Fox on two of the last days of sweeps and follow it up with the release of the book on November 30. Broadcasting companies often use outrageous ploys to pull in higher audience numbers and increase ad revenue.

This time, media buyers thought the sensationalist stunts had gone too far. Several buyers told Fox flat-out that their clients would not be advertising during the program. Some reports said Fox’s ad salespeople didn’t even try to sell the time because they knew the response would be negative.

Bookstores were just as reluctant. Although the book had hit Amazon’s top 20 list before it was released, Borders, Inc. announced it was going to donate all net profits earned on the book to a nonprofit organization for victims of domestic violence.

The message to News Corp. was that no one wanted to touch the project. Both projects were scrapped when News Corp.’s chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch issued a public apology.

“I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project,” Murdoch said. “We are sorry for any pain that this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.”

The backlash is considerable, and the incident is unique in the history of the entertainment industry—although Simpson’s “hypothetical memoir” was something of a singularity as well. All the books that had been shipped will be returned and then destroyed.

The question that remains is the long-term effect on the industry as a whole. Is there such a thing as a limit to our sensationalist appetites—and have we discovered it?