The wild success of Walt Disney’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” could cost the company a cool $270 million from a suit it lost yesterday for stiffing the creators of the original quiz-show hit.
A federal jury in California awarded the prize to Celador International, which built its UK-based show a decade ago before selling the US rights to Disney’s ABC.
It became network TV’s biggest runaway winner for several years, dominating four nights of prime time each week.
The British creators claimed in court they were cheated out of about half of their profits based on the show’s $1 billion earnings. Their lawyers said Disney units ABC and Buena Vista Television concocted sweetheart deals to broker the show among themselves, allegedly cooking the books along the way to soak up added fees and revenue.
Disney immediately denounced the verdict, saying, “We believe this verdict is fundamentally wrong and will aggressively seek to have it reversed.”
The one-month trial followed a six-year legal fight. Disney’s former chief, Michael Eisner, had claimed in e-mails that the show was one of ABC’s most valuable ever — worth more than $1 billion.
His successor, CEO Bob Iger, took the stand to play down the value, characterizing his ex-boss’ claims as “wild guesses.”
Disney’s lawyers argued the creators had been paid $21 million in fees, and insisted there was nothing wrong with its accounting methods of splitting up the rights and profits of the show in several ways.
Celador claimed it was cheated out of tens of millions of dollars in merchandizing licensing fees and other revenues.