A rchive Date
[ 04-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/headline/entertainment/1801682
TV's highly popular genre spurs real litigation
By GREG HERNANDEZ
Los Angeles Daily News
March 3, 2003, 10:55AM
LOS ANGELES - Ratings for reality shows Joe Millionaire, American Idol and The Bachelorette dominated the February sweeps period, but television's hottest genre also has been a boon for litigation, and it's costing producers.
The Insurance Information Network of California said producers are seeking extra insurance to survive the increasing number of lawsuits claiming such things as defamation of character, copyright infringement, invasion of privacy, emotional distress and rigging of results.
"It could change the nature of entertainment insurance," said Candysse Miller, executive director of the insurance network. "Insurance as a business is based on trends. If the trend in reality television is such that the envelope gets pushed further and further and involved shows are more likely to be sued, the companies that offer this type of insurance are going to be very choosy."
Some of the reality show copyright infringement lawsuits are well known: CBS' claim that ABC's I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! and Fox's Boot Camp were blatant rip-offs of the network's popular Survivor franchise, and the clash between Fox and ABC over the similarity of their respective The Chamber and The Chair, both of which have since been canceled.
"It's a little prickly with some of these things," said Brian Kingman, senior vice president of AON/Albert G. Rubin Insurance in Los Angeles. "It's not like a script or book where you have a beginning, middle and end. Most of these formats are similar with participants, elimination of participants and you end up with a winner. It's a little unclear whether these formats are protectable."
Kingman said that while insurance costs are still a "very small percentage" of the total cost of such shows, they are becoming a big percentage when compared with a similarly budgeted show that doesn't deal with reality formats.
Emotional distress lawsuits particularly are on the rise against so-called "hidden camera" practical-joke types of reality shows that film unsuspecting participants in a variety of usually humorous but also potentially embarrassing situations.
"There's a lot more out there than we had ever thought about," said Wendy Diaz, executive underwriter in the entertainment division of the Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. "Now you have the unsuspecting third party filmed in a prank who ... won't sign a release, and you're really stuck because you can't air the show. You get lawsuits because they were hurt or humiliated."
Some recent examples:
A lawsuit was filed against MTV and the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas by a couple who had a prank pulled on them for a show that was to be called Harassment, in which they walked into their hotel room and found what appeared to be a dead body in the bathtub.
The Sci-Fi Channel was sued this month by a woman who claimed to be traumatized by a stunt pulled on her for a show called Scare Tactics. It involved her supposedly being abducted by space aliens who then appear to kill someone.
On Pax TV's Candid Camera, a man at an Arizona airport said he was injured after being made to hop onto a conveyer belt and go through an X-ray machine as part of a gag. The segment never aired.
"This is not Fear Factor, where you have to eat something disgusting or bungee-jump off of a bridge," Miller said. "These are shows that are pushing the envelope as well as the element of surprise. That element of surprise seems to be setting the shows up for these lawsuits."
Kingman said some of the pranks on the hidden-camera shows have simply been "too edgy, so dicey and volatile." He said there are ways to reduce possible lawsuits down the road by modifying the risks and by not doing things so outlandish.
"If you pull it off correctly, the person has fun and signs the release and you're cool," he said.
For other shows such as Big Brother, The Bachelorette and Fear Factor, some ways to reduce litigation risk is to do thorough background checks on participants and to provide full disclosure of any possible hazards. For example, one booted Big Brother male contestant who put a knife to a female contestant's throat was later found to have an arrest record. CBS was sued by the female contestant.
"You are dealing with John Q. Public, not (Screen Actors Guild) actors or people that are trained in acting or participation in the television production process. So there's an increased risk there," Kingman said.
Even if a lawsuit filed against the producers is unsuccessful, the litigation itself is still usually quite expensive to fight - and general liability lawsuits can result in much larger monetary awards than workers' compensation cases. For this reason, insurance companies have had to think long and hard about insuring certain shows.
Diaz said Fireman's Fund, the largest insurer of Hollywood productions for both film and television, has been selective about which reality shows to insure since the boom began a few years ago.
"We still don't write a lot of (policies), but we do have some," she said. "We're not quite comfortable with a lot of this."
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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