Word: goldberger
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...investigation began in 1979 after Jennifer Martin, 32, a lawyer in ABC'S West Coast contracts department, pointed out to her boss that for each episode of Charlie's Angels the network was paying Spelling and Goldberg $30,000 for "exclusivity." Why, she asked, should ABC pay for exclusivity when under the terms of an earlier agreement it already had exclusive rights to their services? According to Martin's memo of the meeting, which the D.A. quoted, ABC V.P. Ronald Sunderland, replied: "You want to know what it's really for? They're [cheating...
...convoluted accounting is the networks' refusal to pay full production costs of the shows they buy. A program like Charlie's Angels, which is really a display case for three beautiful detectives wearing as little as possible, costs $623,000 a segment. But ABC pays Spelling-Goldberg Productions only $583,000, leaving a deficit of between $800,000 and $900,000 a season. It is generally not until a series is sold for syndication that the deficit is erased and the big profits begin. Until then, producers borrow, worry about cost overruns and beg the networks for more...
Spelling and Goldberg are among the most successful of that struggling class. Spelling is a kind of Texas-style Woody Allen who put himself through Southern Methodist University, winning every drama award available before going to Hollywood. Goldberg grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. He was chief of production for Screen Gems before forming the partnership with Spelling...
Spelling and Goldberg say the money diverted to Starsky and Hutch was supposed to be returned to Charlie's Angels when S&H was canceled. And that, apparently, is what has been happening. All transactions were duly recorded, Van De Kamp notes, and there was none of the secrecy-"the badges of fraud"-that usually indicates criminality. Yet a few questions remained. Nowhere does the report explain, for example, Sunderland's statement that the exclusivity gimmick was a device to cheat the Wagners...
...writers involved, who together have 12½% of the profits, were less pleased. Ben Roberts said the decision not to prosecute was "shady" and added that he and Ivan Goff may file a civil suit to get all the money owed them by Spelling and Goldberg. Nor can ABC totally relax...