Litigation on Fox Biz cancellation of reality series gets nasty

Eriq Gardner of The Hollywood Reporter digs into legal filings surrounding claims that Fox Business Network canceled a reality series after discovering one of the stars was gay and found out that management changes played a part.

Gardner writes, “Leftfield begins its story on a specific date, Aug. 14, 2014, when Fox News executive vp programming Bill Shine got a new job duty — taking on the ‘ratings challenged’ Fox Business. He allegedly wasn’t a fan of reality programming, nor the contract FNN recently had signed with Leftfield that obligated the purchase of 26 episodes of the estate sale show.

“According to Leftfield’s reply, this became a problem for Brian Gaffney, the director of special programming, who ‘championed’ the show and shared responsibility for it with Dianne Brandi, executive vp business and legal affairs. ‘Gaffney owed her his allegiance’ because of a promotion, and when they brought Leftfield’s pitch to Ailes for approval, both took credit. The court filing continues by saying that it was later Brandi’s job to break it to Ailes that they now wanted to cancel that same show. ‘But how could she do that without Brandi and Gaffney taking responsibility for a huge failure?’ Leftfield’s attorney asks.

“Without someone internally to blame — Leftfield even raises the name of executive vp Kevin Magee before quickly saying, ‘There was no sense pointing to him’ — Gaffney and Brandi allegedly ‘set about looking for a way to pin responsibility’ on Leftfield (which has become a big name in reality TV with shows for the NFL Network, among others).

“The supposedly ‘fabricated’ excuse to kill the reality TV series became its gay castmember.”

Read more here.