Kim Kardashian’s lightning-fast marriage shouldn’t have any impact on the E! Entertainment network’s relationship with her reality TV family despite some shuffling this week, E!’s chief said on Wednesday.
E! moved up, and then moved back, a rerun of Kardashian’s lavish wedding to professional basketball player Kris Humphries after Kardashian announced this week that the marriage was over.
The network, feeling its reputation had been sullied, put out a statement calling rumours that it had orchestrated the wedding for TV “completely false”.
“I don’t even know if Kim has had a chance to emotionally process this the way that she needs to,” said Suzanne Kolb, president of E! Entertainment. “I don’t have any indication that this is going to change her career path.”
Kardashian’s wedding to Humphries was televised on E! to huge ratings last month. It took place on August 20 and was televised on October 9 and 10.
The first day scored the highest ratings in E!’s history.
Before the marriage went sour, E! had planned to rerun the wedding in prime time on Wednesday and Thursday this week. With Kardashian’s announcement, E! moved the first part up to Monday and was set to run part two on Tuesday.
Then, showing some uncertainty about whether that appeared insensitive, E! moved part two to Thursday at 5pm. An onscreen announcement at the show’s beginning on Thursday will tell viewers about the divorce announcement.
Asked why E! was rerunning a wedding from a broken marriage, Kolb said, “We are a topical network and this is a topic at the moment.” When it first aired, both parts of Kim’s Fairytale Wedding: A Kardashian Event attracted more than four million viewers – big numbers for a cable network.
Kardashian announced the divorce on her website, and some of the nearly 3 000 comments posted there on Wednesday questioned whether the wedding had been a hoax and all for show.
“I am trying not to read all the different media reports but it’s hard not to see all the negative ones,” Kardashian wrote on her website.
“First and foremost, I married for love. I can’t believe I even have to defend this. I would not have spent so much time on something just for a TV show.”
In an interview on Australian TV this week, Kardashian said “intuition” led her to end her marriage. She is in Australia with sister Khloe to promote a handbag line.
“I think when you know so deep in your heart, you have to listen to your intuition,” Kardashian said.
Kolb said she felt the network’s statement about comments questioning the marriage’s legitimacy was necessary because E!, the show’s producers and the Kardashians were being unfairly treated.
With a TV family like the Kardashians, “I don’t know if the distinction between reality and contrivance means anything,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Centre for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.
E! executives may have to tread a little carefully around the controversy, but it also has the potential of being a gold mine, he said. Think of the alternative: In TV drama, there’s no bigger story-killer than a couple getting married and living happily ever after.
“Chevy manufactures cars out of their assembly line,” he said. “The Kardashians manufacture stories like these. This is what they do. This is their product.”
The Kardashian family has been a cottage industry for E! ever since Keeping Up With the Kardashians premiered in 2007. Kim was the star, known best at the time for a sex tape she did with singer Ray J.
The initial show produced three spinoffs: Khloe and Lamar; Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami and Kourtney and Kim Take New York.
All the shows are currently between seasons, but another season of Kourtney and Kim Take New York premieres on November 27, and it will deal in depth with Kim’s marriage problems, Kolb said.
“The show is obviously going to have more drama in it that we expected with a newlywed couple,” she said. “People will see how difficult this was for the two of them.”
Not following the Kardashian story would be contrary to the way E! has covered the family for the past four years and the way the Kardashians have chosen to live their lives unfiltered, Kolb said.
The rapid dissolution of the marriage put the Kardashian clan squarely in line for public ridicule.
Jay Leno opened his Tonight show on Tuesday with six Kardashian jokes. “Seventy-two days,” he said. “I was on at 10 o’clock longer than that.”
David Letterman offered a Top Ten list of “Things That Have Lasted Longer Than the Kardashian Marriage”. No 5 was “ABC’s remake of Charlie’s Angels”.
E! is walking a fine line with bankable reality stars and a potential backlash.
“I think you try to milk it and say you’re not going to milk it,” said Derek Baine, a cable TV analyst for SNL Kagan. “You don’t want to seem crass and taking advantage of a personal tragedy.
In fact, it’s their job to boost the ratings. There’s nothing like a good car wreck.”
In another interview on Australian television, Kardashian said she had not decided what to do with her 20.5 carat engagement ring, or with the gifts from her R1 358 000 wedding registry.– Sapa-AP