Lifetime Returning Ad Money For "Project Runway"



(image via boston)

First Bravo's most-successful show "Project Runway" left the upscale channel for the more downmarket and profoundly victimish Lifetime. Drama! That's sort of like Billy Crudup leaving the fucking superhott Mary Louise Parker for the way less glam but, we cannot fail to note, still talented Claire Danes (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment). Maybe Lifetime TV's really, really good in bed (Averted Gaze)?

In the first part, the breakup was met with shock and horror among the cognoscenti (Insert: Paganini Caprice No. 24 in A minor). Then, in Part the Second, lawsuits abounded; civility exits stage left as the Falstaffian Harvey Weinstein enters the fray. And in the final act we, the audience, are waiting rapt for a Deus-to-Exit-the-Machina and rescue the show from an all but certain ghastley end. From Mediapost:

"Whether 'Project Runway' will ever air on Lifetime is a question as difficult to forecast as which fashions will take off next fall. As a result, without a show for next month, Lifetime has begun to return money to advertisers who committed to the series via deals made in last summer's upfront.

"'With the current economy, clients are asking for cash back and they're getting it,' a person with knowledge of the matter said.

"A Lifetime representative declined comment."

"Last summer, with no reason to believe that 'Runway' would not air on the network, Lifetime sold it in the upfront for premium CPMs. Since then, the network has become entangled in a legal morass.

"How much the current give-backs will affect its business was partly detailed in court papers the network filed. A failure to air the show--either in January or ever--will leave Lifetime 'deprived of vital advertising commitments,' the papers said.

"Lifetime had planned to launch the show in November, but had moved the debut to next month.

"For networks, having to give cash back is a bête noire. As a rule, they look for ways to keep the dollars in-house--to offer advertisers additional impressions or some other form of makegoods.

"But in this case, Lifetime may have been caught between a rock (the uniqueness of 'Runway') and a hard place (a sputtering economy) that has left it needing to accede to advertiser requests.

"For marketers, 'Runway'--with its buzz, upscale audience and other driving factors--is such a desirable show to be a part of that Lifetime may not have other top programming to offer as a substitute to satisfy them. And with advertisers finding their budgets stretched thinner these days than when they may have committed to 'Runway' last summer, they may be eager to reclaim dollars if the show is a no-go.

More here.