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The treasured, undercompensated employees of the notoriously, er, frugal E! network (as the joke goes within the company, you can't spell "cheap" without "E") have been informed that their boss feels their finanical pain. In a e-missive that just went out to the entire L.A. office, fearless leader Ted Harbert has done the second-best thing to giving across-the-board raises to his starving troops—he's commissioned a compensation study (to be completed in "a few months") to determine how his underlings' paystubs stack up against the competition's:

For over a year now, I have been meeting with a group of employees each month in what have been commonly referred to as "Meet & Greets". My plan has been, and continues to be, to meet with every employee at E!

These meetings have been extremely beneficial from my perspective. Not only have I met several hundred passionate employees, I have also heard in a very candid way what's great about E! and what could be better. While I am always thrilled to hear the good news, I'm frankly much more interested in hearing about those areas where we fall short.

Many issues have been discussed at these meetings; however, I've heard loud and clear your concerns about pay. As a result, we decided last April to commission a company-wide compensation study.

The objectives of this study are to (1) evaluate competitive pay, (2) develop a salary structure for E!, and (3) create salary guidelines to support this new structure.

We identified four companies with significant entertainment experience to conduct this study for us, and ultimately, we awarded the project to Mercer Consulting Group. They began work with us on July 13, and have since been busy collecting data and analyzing our job positions.

When the project is complete in a few months, we will have objective and accurate marketplace data allowing us to compare jobs at E! with those of our competitors. This information will assist us in attracting and retaining the talent we need to ensure E!'s continuing success.

Thanks for your candor in our employee meetings and your continuing hard work and dedication to making E! a great place to work.

Pending the outcome of the study, the network should continue to tap unconventional revenue sources, like that yard and furniture sale, or a 15-percent tax on all the foreign currency mistakenly tucked into Tara Reid's g-string during Taradise nightclub outings.