Demand Drives Celebrity TV News Spin-Offs

ByABC News
February 24, 2005, 8:09 PM

Feb. 25, 2005 — -- On Thursday night, Fox Television ran an hour-long special entitled "Stars Without Makeup." It seemed a direct offshoot of the more aggressive approach to celebrity journalism from the Fuller school. But on television, such a show is the exception. The world of celebrity TV works far more hand-in-hand with official Hollywood.

In a measure of just how close some in the world of entertainment media are to their subjects, it's at the Paramount lot -- alongside movie and TV sets -- where two of the biggest celebrity media TV shows are filmed: "Entertainment Tonight" and its brand new spin-off "The Insider."

The day begins for those shows at the crack of dawn in Los Angeles, 5 a.m. PT. That's when the editorial board meeting for "Entertainment Tonight" and "The Insider" begins.

"Tell everybody who you saw at Mr. Chow's last night," the executive producer of the shows, Linda Bell Blue, instructs "The Insider" anchor Pat O'Brien.

O'Brien cheerfully takes center stage. "We're at Chow's last night. Table 1 was Brad Pitt and Brad Grey. Table 2 was Sara Jessica Parker. Table 3 was me and Bill Gibbons. Who knows who Billy Gibbons is?"

One staffer seems to have an idea: "ZZ Top," he says.

"ZZ Top, thank you very much," says O'Brien. "Lionel Richie was at Table 4. So it was a good night."

"What did you have?" Bell Blue asks.

"Peking duck," says O'Brien. "That's what you have at Mr. Chow's."

"Entertainment Tonight averages 7 million viewers a day. Combined with viewers of "The Insider," "Inside Edition," "Access Hollywood" and "Extra!," these celebrity news magazines grab more than 100 million viewers a week.

Much of the talk at this meeting not surprisingly deals with the shows' coverage of the Academy Awards.

"Do Ray and Leo split the vote, do you think?" asks O'Brien, then corrects himself: "Sorry, I mean Jamie and Leo," referring to Jamie Foxx, star of the Ray Charles biopic "Ray," and Leonardo DiCaprio, of "The Aviator." Then O'Brien explained: "By the way, the fact that I said 'Ray' means that that is what is on everybody's mind."