NBC may have paid $1 million for Paris Hilton's interview – outbidding ABC by some $900k – but what did Ryan Seacrest and E! have to pay for access?

Nothing.

The jailed heiress delivered lines like "[it's] horrible and really hard" yesterday to Ryan on E! News, which reportedly paid exactly zero dollars and zero cents for the interview. Granted, it was a phoner, and nothing can bring in the ratings like an in-person chat (well, perhaps a jailhouse chat), but E! scored 10 minutes of Hilton's time, gratis.

Take that, Zucker.