Maybe it was the way Topher Grace casually used the F-word during an interview; rather than cut the expletive, the segment was edited so that he repeated the word nine times. It might sound like an uncensored “Saturday Night Live” skit, but it’s business as usual for NGTV, which officially launches this week after completing its beta phase.
The main attraction at this increasingly high-trafficked Web brand is A-list talent plugging even PG and PG-13 film and TV fare in distinctly hard-R style — think “Entertainment Tonight” meets Howard Stern on Sirius.
How a no-name, Web-only venture is getting permission from studios to bend the rules of the highly sanitized, tightly scripted world of the celebrity interview is subject to interpretation. Taj, who sees his gossip-free site as an “anti-TMZ.com,” dismissed the notion of any reluctance on the part of the studios to have their product present on the site.
One studio publicist deemed NGTV “unsanctioned material.” “I wasn’t comfortable with what I saw,” a second studio publicist said, adding that the company was evaluating whether to continue working with NGTV.
Gene Simmons of Kiss serves as NGTV’s chairman of the board, though he has no creative involvement. Al Cafaro, former chairman and CEO of A&M Records, is an investor, as is media veteran Jay Vir, who also is the company’s co-president. According to NGTV, financing has come from private investors and institutions.
[Source Reuters]