“We’re putting this on the air. This is a hit”: Ryan Seacrest Saved Kim Kardashian’s $1.8 Billion Fortune, Stopped ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ From Being Canceled
The American reality television series Keeping Up With the Kardashians entertained the audience for almost fourteen years. The show became the longest-running reality TV series in America. The show aired on the E! cable network in 2007 and ran for 20 seasons. The show became a huge success, as the Kardashian stars earned an enormous sum of $930,000 per episode from the show.
Previously, it was revealed by the then CEO of the Comcast Entertainment Group, which includes the E! network, that the audience could have never witnessed the lifestyle of the Kardashians if Ryan Seacrest hadn’t intervened to save the show.
Ryan Seacrest became the savior for the Kardashians
Kim Kardashian’s reality show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, was once the most-watched series in the United States. The show gave a peek inside the high-profile lives of the Kardashian family. All the stardom that the Kardashians enjoyed through their reality show would have never been possible if the creator of the show, Ryan Seacrest, didn’t advocate for them.
It was revealed that the Kardashian reality show was initially disapproved of by the producers, who were not convinced by the content delivered by the Kardashians. Amidst this, Ryan Seacrest intervened and presented the concept to the boss of the E! network. During that time, Ted Harbert was president and CEO of the Comcast Entertainment Group, which included the E! network. During an interview, he shared that Seacrest gave him the sizzle reel of the Kardashian family to convince him to give the show the green light. Harbert recalled,
“He called me and said in a very polite, respectful way about my own staff, he said ‘I know I’m going over people’s heads but your staff has passed on this tape a few times. I know I’m going over people’s heads but I’d appreciate it if you’d give it a look’. He sent it to me that day, I took it home that night and looked at it. If I remember correctly, it was just seven minutes of a barbecue put together. And I went in the next day and said to my staff, ‘we’re putting this on the air. This is a hit.'”
Harbert was convinced by Seacrest’s pitch; however, his staff members disagreed with the idea of airing the Keeping Up With the Kardashians show. Harbert’s staff claimed that
“the family don’t really have talent, they don’t really do anything”.
But Harbert argued that the reality show followed a classic family drama formula, and he was convinced that it would be a success.
What finally convinced Ted Harbert to air Keeping Up With the Kardashians?
Ted Harbert was impressed by Ryan Seacrest‘s confidence in the show. According to him, there is a big contribution to Seacrest’s efforts in bringing Keeping Up With the Kardashians to the screen. Referring to the American Idol host, the former CEO of the Comcast Entertainment Group said,
“He really believed in it. And he took the unusual step of going over people’s heads and so under normal business, I would never have seen it and I would never even known it was passed on.”
Harbert was also intrigued by the concept of Kardarshian’s family drama. He said,
“They fight, they scream, but at the end they really love each other. And that had a lot to do with Kris as the matriarch pulling the whole family together after whatever they were fighting about.”
The teaser for KUWTK showed the members of the Kardashian family—that includes mother Kris Jenner and sisters Kourtney, Kim, and Khloe—at a Sunday backyard barbecue.
Source: Mirror
