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LOS ANGELES - Paris Hilton's time doesn't usually come cheap, but the celebrity jailbird's first TV interview after her release from incarceration will apparently be on the house.
NBC News today flatly denied reports it had agreed to pay as much as $1 million for her first post-jail
television exclusive, and representatives for the hotel heiress insist she is not taking money for TV interviews.
"NBC News has not and will not pay for an interview," network spokeswoman Allison Gollust told Reuters. She said contrary to stories originating in the New York Post on Thursday, no deal was in place for Hilton to appear on NBC's Today show the day after she gets out of jail.
The denials came amid a media flurry over where the 26-year-old multimillionaire "celebutante" would surface on TV, how much it might cost, and the propriety of news organisations paying -- directly or indirectly -- for interviews.
Paid interviews -- while common in some countries -- are taboo in US journalism because it might be an incentive for news sources to embellish or fabricate information.
But "licensing" deals providing compensation for the rights to personal material such as video footage or photos have grown more common.
Sources at NBC and its chief network rival for a Hilton homecoming exclusive, ABC, both said her representatives initially had demanded payment in return for an interview.
One ABC News insider said on condition of anonymity that network had offered to pay as much as US$100,000 for photos and video from the Hilton family but was told "that was not in the same galaxy" as what NBC was willing to pay.
By Friday, two days before Hilton's expected release after three weeks in jail for violating probation in a drunken driving case, Hilton's camp said money was not an issue.
"Contrary to media reports, Paris Hilton is not being paid for any television interview," said Michael Sitrick, a Hilton family representative. "Nor is Paris being paid for any collateral, including video and photographs related to any television interview."
Independent network news analyst Andrew Tyndall said paying for a Hilton interview would pose at least two problems.
"One, you're not supposed to pay news sources, and two, you've decided that Paris Hilton is an important enough story to violate that rule. And probably the second sin is even worse than the first."
- REUTERS