Get ‘real’ & pay your staff – AG

ALBANY — A reality television company accused of underpaying its workers reached a settlement Wednesday with Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office.

Sharp Entertainment LLC, which produces reality fare such as “Man v. Food” and “Bad Ink,” agreed to pay $226,000 in restitution to employees Schneiderman says were cheated out of overtime for having worked over 40 hours each week.

Schneiderman said his office’s investigation found that since the beginning of 2009, Sharp Entertainment illegally avoided paying overtime to production assistants and associate producers by misclassifying them as exempt from such pay and keeping shoddy paperwork on the hours they actually worked.

A Sharp Entertainment repsaid it settled with Schneiderman “amicably to enable all of its valued employees to concentrate fully on producing quality television shows.”