World Wrestling Entertainment Settles Lawsuit With Parents Television Council ...
STAMFORD CONN July 8 2002 – World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. (NYSE: WWE) today announced it has successfully settled its lawsuit against the Parents Television Council (PTC) L. Brent Bozell III Media Research Center (MRC) and others. As a result WWE will receive $3.5 million and a series of non-monetary considerations including a personal letter of apology from Mr. Bozell (see the posting at the PTC website www.parentstv.org and at wwe.com or corporate.wwe.com).
The lawsuit centered on various statements made by PTC and its representatives linking the deaths of four children to the WWE SmackDown! television program and on statements claiming that certain advertisers had stopped advertising on SmackDown.
In his letter of apology Mr. Bozell acknowledged that the PTC’s concerns with the content of WWE’S programming has been reduced significantly over the past years and went on to admit that it was not fair to WWE to have passed on to advertisers accusations about children’s deaths which were false. In addition as part of the settlement agreement Mr. Bozell has offered to meet with certain specific advertisers with whom he or members of his organizations met with or sent letters to regarding WWE to personally explain the basis of his letter of apology.
"We have always maintained that certain statements made about us by the PTC went beyond fair comment or criticism and were false defamatory and very unfair ” said Linda McMahon WWE CEO. "We feel vindicated by this settlement."
###
Media Contact:
Gary Davis Vice President Corporate Communications
203-353-5066
Investor Contact:
Tom Gibbons Vice President Investor Relations
203-328-2576