Ah, another shake-up in the television industry, as Project Runway tried to jump-ship from the NBC-Universal network, Bravo, to Lifetime, and NBC responded by suing their pants off!
Project Runway started in 2005 as a fashion-related reality series on the gay-friendly NBC cable network, Bravo. While TV was already awash in reality competition shows, Project Runway managed to stand-out from the pack, becoming a highly-rated critical darling. In fact, it has been nominated for an Emmy for all three of its seasons and has a Peabody Award.
But yesterday, it was announced that Project Runway was leaving the Bravo network for Lifetime. NBC responded by slapping them with a lawsuit.
In it, NBC-Universal claims they were unfairly cut out of the deal, which producers of the show had signed a contract agreeing not to do. NBC should have been allowed a chance to match or better Lifetime's offer in order to keep the show on their Bravo network, but they were not given that opportunity. However, the Weinstein Co., which makes the show, says NBC was given the opportunity and they were simply outbid; NBC contests this, saying they turned down a different offer, in which the Weinstein Co. tried to package the Runway deal with several other shows they were uninterested in. Regardless, the Weinstein Co. maintains there was right of first refusal in the contract.
All of this dovetails quite nicely with our ongoing discussion on changes in the industry, largely brought upon by emerging new media, including the Web and cable networks. I have another piece on that today which will go into even more detail on everything, but we will keep an eye on the developments of this case, as entertainment law has always been a nebulous and highly-contestable area and we, as creators and copyright-holders, must remain vigilantly-aware of changes.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
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