Network Pays Murdoch $1m for Cancelled Oj Simpson Interview

Rupert Murdoch appears to have recouped some of money lost in the recent OJ Simpson fiasco when his publishing arm received an unexpected windfall of $1m (£501,000) from the rival television network ABC.

The pay-back comes in the form of a "kill fee" extracted from ABC's entertainment division before the chairman of News Corporation had cancelled the OJ Simpson book If I Did it.

ABC's celebrity interviewer, Barbara Walters, had entered into prolonged negotiations with Mr Murdoch's publishing house, ReganBooks, to do a special interview with OJ Simpson as part of publicity for the book. But shortly before the interview was due to go ahead Walters pulled out of the deal. According to Newsweek, which revealed the payment last night, the journalist concluded the project "wasn't right for her". By then negotiations were so advanced that News Corp demanded compensation, said by Newsweek to be up to $1m.

The figure will spare ReganBooks and its owner some of the financial pain - if not the embarrassment - of the Simpson debacle. The publisher, Judith Regan, is expected to have to honour at least part of the fee she agreed to pay Simpson, reported to be up to $3.5m, and there is also the cost of pulping hundreds of thousands of copies of the book. Mr Murdoch withdrew the book last week saying it was an "ill-considered project" out of tune with the wishes of the American people.

He acted in the wake of an outcry from politicians, the media and the families of Simpson's wife Nicole Brown and her boy-friend Ron Goldman who were murdered in 1994. Mr Murdoch also cancelled the interview with Simpson conducted by Regan herself after Walters had dropped out.

Regan had portrayed the book and interview as the long-awaited "confession" by Simpson that he had committed the murders, for which he was acquitted in 1996 though he was later found liable for the victims' deaths in a civil action.

However, Simpson has since claimed, as the title of the book suggested, that he was merely hypothesising about what he would have done had he been the murderer. He cooperated with ReganBooks merely for money for his children, he said.