Since its debut last year, Los Angeles based E! has brought to almost 19 million cable subscribers across the country its bright graphic look, a crew of young hosts with great hair and teeth, and a format of endlessly rotating plugs, previews and puff pieces. Owned by Time Warner and a consortium of cable operators, E! aims to succeed in an increasingly tight cable market by servicing the need to hear celebrities talk about themselves 24 hours a day. (And there apparently is such a need: media analyst Larry Gerbrandt, of Paul Kagan Associates, believes the network could become profitable within two years.) E! is available as part of the basic cable package in almost all major markets; the channel’s audience is growing but is still dwarfed by such cable giants as CNN (59 million subscribers) and MTV (55 million).
E!’s strategy for success does not include peeling back any show-business skin. “If we asked embarrassing questions, we’d be out of business tomorrow,” says network president Lee Masters. So E! agrees to such publicists’ dictums as no questions to Robin Givens about Mike Tyson. “Celebrities won’t say anything to you unless you’re credible,” explains E! senior vice president Fran Shea. At E! that means if you don’t have anything nice to say, you’re not saying anything credible at all-a definition that has gotten the attention of Hollywood publicists. “They’re a wonderful way to help promote movies,” says publicist Heidi Schaeffer, whose clients Sally Field, Chevy Chase, Glenn Close and Demi Moore have all plugged their wares on E! Schaeffer hasn’t worried about banning ticklish inquiries: “In the case of E! it’s never come up.”
Now that they have E! to kick around, such shows as the syndicated “Entertainment Tonight,” Fox’s “Entertainment Daily Journal” (“E.D.J.”) and CNN’s “Showbiz Today” get to think of themselves as hard hitting. “E! is just not adventurous to the point that we pay any attention,” says David Nuell, executive producer of “Entertainment Tonight.” The nicest thing Bill Knoedelseder, executive producer of “E.D.J.,” can find to say of E! is, “They do take up time on a cable channel.” He adds, “I’ve heard they refer to themselves as the celebrity-friendly network. "
And why not? Knowing the latest celebrity tidbit “makes people more interesting the next day at work,” says Deborah Adler Myers, E!’s vice president of programming and development. Thus, the network is busily finding ever more ways to praise famous men-and women. Starting in January the endless stream of snippets will be interrupted by a three-hour block of longer prime-time shows, some of which have already premiered on the network. Producers are working on a half-hour program of evening news-mixing coverage of breaking stories like Elizabeth Taylor’s engagement with that of staged media events (sometimes the two are hard to tell apart). On “Celebrity: The Game Show,” the nonfamous will test their knowledge of the celebrated. A documentary series called “Behind the Scenes” takes a look at everything from the making of a music video to a day at a modeling agency. E! has already launched a half-hour interview show called “Extreme Closeup.” It could be retitled “Extreme Airbrush.” In a recent session, Billy Crystal found myriad ways to plug his movie “City Slickers” while wrestling with such probing remarks from interviewer Sandie Newton as, “Having Billy Crystal as a dad or husband-they must be the luckiest people in the world!” Now that’s credibility.
