Simpson to Give First Interview to NBC News Show : Media: Network says he won’t be paid for Wednesday night appearance. Agreement signals failure of pay-per-view package.

Signaling that O.J. Simpson’s efforts to sell an appearance to pay-per-view television have failed, NBC said Monday that it has scheduled an interview with its former football analyst Wednesday night--his first extensive media questioning since a jury exonerated him of murder charges last week.

NBC executives said no payment or other consideration would be given to Simpson or his representatives, and there would be no prohibitions on the questions. The interview will be broadcast without commercials.

“There is no quid pro quo for this interview,” Judy Smith, NBC vice president for corporate communications, said. “We have no contract with O.J. and no plans to hire him.”

The hourlong interview will air from NBC’s Burbank studios as part of a special 8-11 p.m. edition of the network’s newsmagazine “Dateline NBC.” NBC “Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw and “Today” co-anchor Katie Couric will conduct the question-and-answer session.

“O.J. Simpson agreed to do the interview today,” Andrew Lack, president of NBC News, said Monday. “He agreed there will be no ground rules, and that Tom and Katie may ask him questions on anything.”

NBC did not say at what point during the broadcast the interview will occur. The other two hours will deal with Simpson’s trial on charges that he murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, and with reaction to the verdicts.

Simpson has personal and professional ties to NBC. Until his arrest last year, he had worked as a football analyst for the network since 1989 and had completed an entertainment series pilot, “Frogmen.”

Don Ohlmeyer, president of NBC West Coast, is a longtime friend of Simpson. He visited the former football star in jail and defended him to the news media.

NBC sources said Ohlmeyer played a key role in landing the interview. They said he initially spoke to network President Bob Wright about Simpson’s interest in doing a TV interview, including one on pay-per-view. Wright, the sources said, was opposed to going that route--as were major cable TV companies.

“Don contacted Bob with respect to what NBC as a network might do,” said one executive, “and then Bob turned it over to NBC News.” Lack, the news division president, spoke with Simpson over the weekend.

Ohlmeyer and Wright could not be reached for comment.

NBC sources said it was Wright’s decision not to try to sell advertising during the interview--although commercials will appear during other portions of the three-hour “Dateline NBC” broadcast. “He didn’t think NBC should profit from the Simpson interview,” one source said.

Though it observed the Columbus Day holiday Monday, NBC was nevertheless the target of a phone campaign by protesters of the Simpson verdicts.

“All the executive phone mail boxes are full,” said Tammy Bruce, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women, which has helped organize protests, including a march in Brentwood on Saturday that attracted about 5,000 people. “Any corporate entity that associates with O.J., who at the least is an admitted batterer, will commit economic suicide. NBC is not immune from the public withdrawing its support in disgust.”

One television executive at a rival network, however, predicted that all eyes in America would be glued to NBC on Wednesday night: “By not taking advertising, they can hold their head up and say they took the high road. They could have cashed in on the advertising because the numbers will be huge. They’ll get a 500 share.”

Yet NOW’s efforts have so far proved fruitful in helping quash certain efforts by Simpson to make money. Bruce said the organization encouraged consumers nationwide to call cable companies in protest after news surfaced that Simpson was trying to put together a pay-per-view event to help defray his legal expenses.

Prospects of such a program appeared dead last week after the nation’s two largest cable operators and the two biggest pay-per-view distributors said they would not participate in such an event because it would offend their customers.

The groundswell of opposition to capitalizing on the murders also seemed to play a role in the decision by the International Creative Management talent agency to formally drop Simpson as a client, after representing him for 20 years. After nearly a week of speculation that ICM was shopping the pay-per-view event and was considering representing Simpson’s lawyer, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., the agency set the record straight Monday.

“We have not been representing him for the past 15 months, nor will we be representing him in the future,” the talent agency said of Simpson in a prepared statement.

ICM said it would not advise anyone associated with the case, including defense attorneys and prosecutors. The William Morris Agency has signed prosecutor Marcia Clark as a client.

The clarification by ICM was not enough, however, to head off a protest by 50 picketers at noon Monday at the agency’s Beverly Hills office. “ICM’s position on Friday was vague,” Bruce said. “We are happy that they have clarified it.”

*

Hall reported from New York, Hofmeister from Los Angeles.