Of OJ, Fox told by Adfolk: 'Don't Even Ask'

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 7:32 AM on November 22, 2006.

Yes, Fox did the right thing by dumping its OJ murder porn special, and its Judith Regan book too, but before we break out the champagne, it's important to know why: money.

Murdoch knew for quite some time that this project was in motion but only felt that it was in poor taste when his own stars (plummeting tho they may be) Geraldo and O'Reilly, and nearly every other human available, castigated NewsCorp for it.

Oh, and AdAge reports today that not only is Fox in the dumper ratings-wise, but that they were having a hell of a time finding advertisers for the OJ segment:

"They have not contacted us, but we told them don't even bother, we would not be interested," said Chris Allen, VP-associate director at GSD&M, which represents clients such as AT&T.

So yes, they did "the right thing" and, according to the New York Times, they may just sell the book rights to someone else. Murdoch has a number of publishers under his umbrella... maybe he'll wait for it to blow over and sell it to himself.

Tagged as: judith regan, advertising, oj simpson, murdoch, fox

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.