CBS put the kibosh on an eBay auction Monday when a former Survivor contestant attempted to sell her personal diaries chronicling her
experience on the reality series.
As we reported here yesterday, Nicole Delma, who appeared in the Pearl Islands cycle back in 2003, was auctioning off her "Survivor Diaries"-two notebook journals written while she was auditioning for the competition and immediately after she was voted off the island.
The notebooks contain accounts of scenes being staged (including Delma's audition tape) or re-shot, as well as descriptions of the harrowing weeks she spent in "castaway camp" with the other contestants who were voted off.
When we spoke with her last week, Delma was confident she was out of legal jeopardy and joked that she "hope[s] the price rockets up before I get a call from CBS."
Sure enough, on Monday afternoon, just hours before the auction was to end at 6:10 p.m. Pacific Time--and with the price over $2,000--Delma received a message on the auction page from an associate general counsel at CBS asking her to call ASAP.
Soon after, Delma posted the following response: "Could you kindly provide me, in writing, an explanation of the basis for their belief that CBS 'owns' my life story. I'm still not completely clear... Thank you, Nicole."
When we checked eBay last night at 8:44, the listing had been removed.
A CBS spokesman confirmed that the network had intervened. And while he would not comment on Delma's question regarding her contract, he offered the following comment: "The only thing more boring than a reality contestant being reminded about their contract is the press coverage that inevitably follows. [Editor's Note: Ouch!] We simply asked (very nicely, in fact) that it be taken down. No yelling, no threats or otherwise."
Delma says CBS has yet to provide the documentation she requested and offered this retort: "I am very happy my contract does not include any clause prohibiting me from publishing a work of 'fiction.' I'll be releasing my first 'novel' in the near future."
By Joel Topcik
Posted by Joel Topcik on September 9, 2008 web page
__________________________________________________
Going Once! 'Survivor' Contestant Puts Diaries on eBay
September 8, 2008
Nicole Delma didn't last long on Survivor. A contestant on the Pearl Islands edition of the CBS reality show back in 2003, Delma left her mark thanks to a little blue halter dress and a tell-it-like-it-is personality that got her voted off in the very first episode.
Now, five years later-and just as the series returns for its 17th cycle on Sept. 25-she's offering to dish up "the whole story behind the show" by auctioning off her "Survivor Diaries" on eBay: two handwritten journals she kept during the audition process and in the weeks after she was voted off the show.
According to the description on the eBay auction (which closes Sept. 8, at 6:10 p.m. Pacific Time), the first journal contains a 72-page account of the time she and the other applicants spent "sequestered for a week in a hotel in Santa Monica, Calif.," subjected to "psychological tests, physical exams, mental evaluations, personality profiling, intelligence testing and exhaustive background checks."
It also recounts meetings with producer Mark Burnett, host Jeff Probst and "scores of other producers and stakeholders."
Part 2 picks up after she was voted off and sent to "castaway camp" for two weeks before reappearing on the "return" show.
When we spoke with Delma last week, she told us she wasn't looking to rewind her 15 minutes.
"I actually enjoyed when the final Survivor identity went away, and I was able to escape that stigma," said Delma, 29, who went on to become manager of e-mail operations for Conde Nast publications. "But I'm starting business school and this seemed like an easy way to raise money for it."
Indeed, when she put her famous blue dress (retail: $50) up on eBay back in 2003, it fetched a cool $2,500. And if the auction should catch the attention of a publisher, she'll retain rights to the content for a potential book.
While Delma didn't elaborate on those meetings with Burnett and Probst, she did offer up a few fun bits from the diaries, such as the multiple takes required for her fateful Tribal Council scene.
"Every time they tried to vote me off, I started cracking up because I knew I was going," she said. "They couldn't get the take they wanted so finally they were like, 'Just get off the island.'"
Delma described her tenure at the castaway camp as more "like a prison camp," where the producers restricted contestants' food in-take to keep them lean for the return show-forcing Delma to steal food from the producers' refrigerators.
But Delma says her revelations about staged auditions and re-shot scenes aren't meant to spoil the show for fans: "A lot of these things have been rumored for a while."
(A CBS spokesperson offered this response: "Yawn. Suggestions that the Survivor experience isn't real or that the competition is staged are as old as they are false.")
As for breaking her contractual silence about the show, which she says expired in 2005, Delma is confident she's in the clear.
Still, she says, "I hope the auction price shoots up before I get a call from CBS."
By Joel Topcik
Posted by Joel Topcik on September 8, 2008
web page
As we reported here yesterday, Nicole Delma, who appeared in the Pearl Islands cycle back in 2003, was auctioning off her "Survivor Diaries"-two notebook journals written while she was auditioning for the competition and immediately after she was voted off the island.
The notebooks contain accounts of scenes being staged (including Delma's audition tape) or re-shot, as well as descriptions of the harrowing weeks she spent in "castaway camp" with the other contestants who were voted off.
When we spoke with her last week, Delma was confident she was out of legal jeopardy and joked that she "hope[s] the price rockets up before I get a call from CBS."
Sure enough, on Monday afternoon, just hours before the auction was to end at 6:10 p.m. Pacific Time--and with the price over $2,000--Delma received a message on the auction page from an associate general counsel at CBS asking her to call ASAP.
Soon after, Delma posted the following response: "Could you kindly provide me, in writing, an explanation of the basis for their belief that CBS 'owns' my life story. I'm still not completely clear... Thank you, Nicole."
When we checked eBay last night at 8:44, the listing had been removed.
A CBS spokesman confirmed that the network had intervened. And while he would not comment on Delma's question regarding her contract, he offered the following comment: "The only thing more boring than a reality contestant being reminded about their contract is the press coverage that inevitably follows. [Editor's Note: Ouch!] We simply asked (very nicely, in fact) that it be taken down. No yelling, no threats or otherwise."
Delma says CBS has yet to provide the documentation she requested and offered this retort: "I am very happy my contract does not include any clause prohibiting me from publishing a work of 'fiction.' I'll be releasing my first 'novel' in the near future."
By Joel Topcik
Posted by Joel Topcik on September 9, 2008 web page
__________________________________________________
Going Once! 'Survivor' Contestant Puts Diaries on eBay
September 8, 2008
Nicole Delma didn't last long on Survivor. A contestant on the Pearl Islands edition of the CBS reality show back in 2003, Delma left her mark thanks to a little blue halter dress and a tell-it-like-it-is personality that got her voted off in the very first episode.
Now, five years later-and just as the series returns for its 17th cycle on Sept. 25-she's offering to dish up "the whole story behind the show" by auctioning off her "Survivor Diaries" on eBay: two handwritten journals she kept during the audition process and in the weeks after she was voted off the show.
According to the description on the eBay auction (which closes Sept. 8, at 6:10 p.m. Pacific Time), the first journal contains a 72-page account of the time she and the other applicants spent "sequestered for a week in a hotel in Santa Monica, Calif.," subjected to "psychological tests, physical exams, mental evaluations, personality profiling, intelligence testing and exhaustive background checks."
It also recounts meetings with producer Mark Burnett, host Jeff Probst and "scores of other producers and stakeholders."
Part 2 picks up after she was voted off and sent to "castaway camp" for two weeks before reappearing on the "return" show.
When we spoke with Delma last week, she told us she wasn't looking to rewind her 15 minutes.
"I actually enjoyed when the final Survivor identity went away, and I was able to escape that stigma," said Delma, 29, who went on to become manager of e-mail operations for Conde Nast publications. "But I'm starting business school and this seemed like an easy way to raise money for it."
Indeed, when she put her famous blue dress (retail: $50) up on eBay back in 2003, it fetched a cool $2,500. And if the auction should catch the attention of a publisher, she'll retain rights to the content for a potential book.
While Delma didn't elaborate on those meetings with Burnett and Probst, she did offer up a few fun bits from the diaries, such as the multiple takes required for her fateful Tribal Council scene.
"Every time they tried to vote me off, I started cracking up because I knew I was going," she said. "They couldn't get the take they wanted so finally they were like, 'Just get off the island.'"
Delma described her tenure at the castaway camp as more "like a prison camp," where the producers restricted contestants' food in-take to keep them lean for the return show-forcing Delma to steal food from the producers' refrigerators.
But Delma says her revelations about staged auditions and re-shot scenes aren't meant to spoil the show for fans: "A lot of these things have been rumored for a while."
(A CBS spokesperson offered this response: "Yawn. Suggestions that the Survivor experience isn't real or that the competition is staged are as old as they are false.")
As for breaking her contractual silence about the show, which she says expired in 2005, Delma is confident she's in the clear.
Still, she says, "I hope the auction price shoots up before I get a call from CBS."
By Joel Topcik
Posted by Joel Topcik on September 8, 2008
web page
