Discovery channel’s Ted Kaczynski close-up, Manhunt: Unabomber, starts off August 1. The scripted series is also a close-up of Jim “Fitz” Fitzgerald, the FBI profiler who tracked Kaczynski down. Sam Worthington plays Fitz. He said he chose not to meet Fitzgerald until shooting started. Instead, Worthington sent Fitz a 1,000-question questionnaire that he figured would help him get an honest read on the guy.

“It’s like an interview with him, but he’s not looking at me,” Worthington said. “I’m trying to profile a profiler. He’s in a profession where he can hide [himself] really well.”

Worthington, who played Jake Sully in Avatar, said he was drawn to the “mechanics” of Manhunt: Unabomber — the nuts and bolts of how the FBI caught a terrorist in the pre-internet age. He mentioned digging Discovery’s Deadliest Catch and “the mechanics of how these guys operate on these big ships.”

Paul Bettany plays Kaczynski. Bettany’s film credits, which include The Avengers and Captain America: Civil War, go on and on. He said he was eager to pick up some television work, and was struck by how fast the shooting goes in TV. “I’m used to shooting one-and-a-half pages a day,” he said. “Shooting 12 pages a day felt really fast.”

Bettany said Manhunt’s eight episodes allowed him to dig deeper into his character’s background, including psychological experiments Kaczynski went through as a teen at Harvard. “What he did was heinous and disgusting and disgraceful,” Bettany said. “But you can have empathy. I did when I learned about his childhood.”

Another crafty take on ’80s crime is Amazon’s Comrade Detective. Premiering on Aug. 4, it’s a Romanian police show dubbed in English. At least it appears to be. In fact, while it was shot in Bucharest with a Romanian cast and crew, Comrade Detective was never an ’80s detective show.

Rhys Thomas, executive producer, described falling into a YouTube hole of Eastern European cop shows, often with a pro-communist, and anti-capitalist, message. That’s what the producers set out to make, and spoof.

Thomas said he gives Amazon major points for getting on board with Comrade Detective. “It’s a high-concept idea,” he said. “The fact that they are up for it speaks a lot to their bravery.”

Comrade Detective follows cops Gregor Anghel and Iosef Baciu as they investigate the murder of a fellow officer. Executive producer Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt voice the main characters. While investigating, the cops unearth a plot to bring capitalism to Romania.

Thomas said the series is a celebration of ’80s thriller directors such as Brian DePalma. “It’s a fun, pulpy story,” he said. “I don’t know that there’s anything else like it out there.”

TLC offers up a three-episode run of Kate Plus 8, about Kate Gosselin, her twins and her sextuplets, starting July 10. The network is interested in future limited runs of Kate Plus 8, said Wendy Douglas, vice president of production at TLC, but there’s “nothing formal to announce.”

“There’s always an interest,” said Douglas. “But there’s a lot to take into account.”

That includes the increasingly busy schedules of the Gosselin clan. Kate’s ex-husband Jon, the children’s father, does not appear in the new trio of episodes. But Kate is “part of the TLC family,” said Douglas, “and I hope she continues to be.”

Kate Plus 8 is produced by Figure 8 Films for TLC. The series, originally Jon & Kate Plus 8, was canceled in 2011, but TLC left open the possibility of specials.

The three new episodes include one about Halloween that sees Kate and the kids turn their barn into a haunted house. “It’s probably the most stressed that we see her,” Douglas said.

The second episode involves skiing. “She’s terrified that someone will get injured,” said Douglas.

Episode three sees the sextuplets turn 13. “Viewers have grown up with the sextuplets and the twins,” said Douglas. “They want to see the kids grow up.”

As the kids get older, they clash more with Mom. Douglas mentions the mini season’s “8 against Kate” vibe.

She hopes there will be more Kate Plus 8. “We’ve followed the family for 11 years and we love them,” said Douglas. “We are very invested in this family.”

The 2016-17 TV and movie awards season has hit high gear with the presentation of Critics’ Choice Awards winners as well as nominations for Golden Globe Awards, NAACP Image Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards. While TV viewers and critics will undoubtedly cheer shows recognized by the major awards groups — and lament over their favorite shows that did not make the awards cut — The Wire saw three trends coming out of the awards blitz that could affect the television industry heading into the new year.

More love for diverse casting: A number of new scripted series with predominately multicultural casts won Critics’ Choice Awards in major categories or earned multiple Golden Globe, NAACP Image or SAG Award nominations. Established and more mainstream series like Empire and Black-ish continued to remain popular with awards judges, garnering numerous nominations. The most prominent and eye-opening nods, though, were for more niche shows like FX’s hip hop-flavored series Atlanta, as creator and star Donald Glover won a Critics’ Choice Award for best actor in a comedy series and Golden Globe nomination in the same category, and HBO’s comedy series Insecure, which nabbed eight NAACP Image Award nominations and a Golden Globe best comedy actress nod for Issa Rae, star of the freshman comedy series. Also, Golden Globe, SAG and NAACP award nominations for Thandie Newton’s performance as a newly sentient android in HBO’s Westworld, and multiple nods for FX limited series The People v. O.J. Simpson and actors including Courtney B. Vance and Sterling K. Brown (also nominated for an NAACP Image Award for NBC’s This Is Us) demonstrate that, when given a chance, actors of color can turn in award-defining performances.

Newbie series bring buzz: During every awards season there seems to be a new series that captures the zeitgeist of the viewer and the eye of judges. This season, several new shows have gained major award recognition. Half of the Critics’ Choice Awards winners in the major drama categories were from freshman series Westworld (HBO) and The Crown (Netflix). Four out of the five Golden Globes-nominated series in the drama category are from first-year shows (The Crown, Westworld, This Is Us and Netflix’s Stranger Things). Four of the five SAG Awards nominations for “outstanding performance by a female actor in a drama series” were from new series, including two from binge-viewing favorite Stranger Things. With 400-plus scripted series for U.S. audiences to choose from, new shows are cutting through the clutter to build both audiences and critical acclaim.

Cable, streaming services dominate TV drama: Anyone who doubted whether the best and most critically acclaimed shows on television today are on cable networks and streaming services only has to look at recent award-winning and nominated shows in the major drama categories. Broadcast network shows were virtually shut out of Critics’ Choice Awards wins in all six drama categories and four of six comedy categories. On the nominations front, This Is Us is the lone broadcast entry in 15 Golden Globes drama category nominations and PBS’s recently ended Downton Abbey staved off a complete SAG Awards nominations sweep for cable and streaming services in major drama series categories. Shows from Netflix (The Crown, Stranger Things), HBO (Westworld, Game of Thrones), USA Network (Mr. Robot), AMC (Better Call Saul), FX (The Americans) and Starz (Outlander) have set the standard for quality among drama series that the broadcast networks will have to live up to if they are to be recognized during future awards seasons.

Reindeer Rundown: NORAD Set for Holiday

To ensure that cable operators and other media outlets can help prevent highflying grandmas from getting run over by flying reindeer and keep up with the lively and quick doings of the little man with the sack, NORAD, the joint U.S.-Canada aerospace warning and control operation, is inviting them to participate in this year’s Santa Claus tracking operation “in a variety of ways.”

NORAD, which annually charts Santa’s Christmas Eve/Christmas Day flights over North American airspace, is allowing media outlets to embed its “track Santa” logo, countdown clock and live tracking map on their websites.

Those outlets will also be authorized to tap into the Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System (DVIDS) system for live satellite interviews (6 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Dec. 24) with senior NORAD command leaders (email requests to NORADTracksSanta@dvidshub.net). Various flight crews will escort the flight, per usual.

Starting at 2:01 a.m., the website will stream video of Santa preparing the flight and then from several locations en route. Those with OnStar can also press the button in their cars to locate Santa in his sleigh. No word on whether car-to-sleigh communications are mandated under the Department of Transportation’s new V2V “light duty” vehicles proposal issued last week, though Santa’s sleigh probably qualifies as heavy duty.

NORAD has tracked Santa since 1955. Before that, it was mostly word-of-mouth between siblings talking excitedly, snug in their beds, while they were supposed to be asleep.

— John Eggerton

Ball-Watcher Update: Times Square Hosts Set

Updating our item on the New Year’s Day festivities in Times Square, the talent, or at least most of it, has been named for the free, anchored, coverage of the ball drop that the Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment are making available to media outlets.

Singers Gavin DeGraw (“She Sets the City on Fire”) and Rachel Platten (“Fight Song” and “Stand By You”) will be co-headlining the live, commercial- free feeds and the webcast. Platten also gets the honors of carrying on the tradition of performing John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

Univision will provide “three star musical performances,” but they have yet to be named.

Returning as host of the Web coverage will be Spotify’s “global head of rock” Allison Hagendorf, joined by Jonathan Bennett (Mean Girls, Cake Wars).

— John Eggerton

The Federal Communications Commission chairmanship is not usually among the first posts filled in a new administration. It can sometimes take months after the inauguration for a new chair to be installed, with a sitting commissioner — in this case either of two Republicans, Ajit Pai or Michael O’Rielly — serving as interim chairman in the, well, interim.

But a lot of names and scenarios have been bubbling up for the new chairman of the agency, particularly since it is hard to predict if the Trump administration will follow form or blaze new paths to various nominations.

Here is the current laundry list (with background input from various sources), with the caveat that someone could come out of left field to be named the FCC’s starting pitcher, as it were:

Pai: Senior sitting Republican. The last two Republican chairs — Kevin Martin and Michael Powell — were plucked from the ranks of sitting commissioners, though Powell had big name recognition as the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Martin had been a lawyer in Florida representing President George W. Bush in the 2000 recount court battle. Still, Pai has Senate connections: He once worked with Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).

O’Rielly: A dark horse, but multiple sources said his name is in the mix, given his Senate connections as a former Hill staffer.

Jeff Eisenach/Mark Jamison/Roslyn Layton: They are the deregulatory think tankers leading the FCC transition team. Wheeler was an Obama technology and FCC transition team leader and got the big chair, as was former Republican FCC chairman Mark Fowler. Fowler confirmed for the Wire that he “was in charge of supervising the transition teams of all major regulatory agencies, including the FCC” back in the Reagan years, so there is precedent for the pickers becoming the picked.

David Fellows: A telecommunications industry vet spanning engineering and operations, he’s the co-founder and chief technology officer of Layer3 TV, the Denver-based, self-described “next-generation cable operator,” and is also serving as chief scientist of the cable-focused Energy 2020 initiative. Fellows has deep experience in various facets of the telecom and tech sectors, including past key roles at MSOs (Comcast and AT&T Broadband), major suppliers (Scientific Atlanta, now part of Cisco Systems), telecom (GTE) and as a venture capitalist (Genovation Capital and Pilot House Ventures).

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.): He is a member of the House Communications Subcommittee, though he does not have a high profile there. Cramer was also an early Trump supporter, which appears to count a lot with the President-elect.

Brandt Hershman: An Indiana state senator with telecom deregulation chops and a degree from Harvard, he is said to be a suggestion from VP-elect and former Indiana congressman and governor Mike Pence, who is leading the transition. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the next chairman had connections with Indiana,” said one FCC transition watcher.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn: The Tennessee Republican is another early, and vocal, Trump supporter who is a member of the transition team executive committee, though she may be looking for a bigger post. She is vice chair of the House Energy & Commerce Committee and has been very active on communications issues.

Ann Coulter: OK, that’s a long, long shot. But the conservative commentator was another early (and late) Trump supporter and last summer all but campaigned for the FCC post, telling Business Insider she would take aim at big media companies she said had “just gotten very powerful and very unfair,” something Trump echoed in criticisms of the proposed AT&T-Time Warner and approved Comcast-NBCUniversal deals and his attacks on media news outlets in general.

###

One World Sports, Facing Reported Woes, Looks to ‘Bright Future’

One World Sports, the niche sports network that has been the go-to channel for distributors locked into, or looking for alternatives to, onerous carriage contracts, is having some money problems of its own, according to sources last week.

Sports news website Awful Announcing first reported the channel had furloughed workers in an effort to cut costs, and in fact had considered bankruptcy and failed to pay employees and vendors for months. Sources said last week the network — with access to 43 million homes but mostly carried on lightly penetrated sports tiers — had lined up an investor that backed out at the last minute, prompting the need to take quick action.

One World CEO Sandy Brown said some of the reported signs of financial distress weren’t accurate but didn’t give specifics. He said talks were ongoing with a potential investor and he was optimistic a deal would be reached. “We’re very excited about where the network is headed,” Brown told The Wire. “We’ve got a very bright future and we’ve just got to get through this.”

The channel is owned by One Media Corp., a Dallas investment firm headed by Seamus O’Brien. He’s also the owner of the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League, and Cosmos games air on One World Sports. That team and the league itself are in financial difficulties, according to reports. OWS also airs international hockey, basketball and golf matches, along with table tennis and badminton competitions. It’s landed several deals with distributors that were otherwise locking horns with pricier networks.

— Mike Farrell

A federal court might have blocked the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to promote municipal broadband by pre-empting state laws restricting it in North Carolina and Tennessee, but more than two dozen Colorado communities — including Aspen — will look to the ballot box on Tuesday (Nov. 8) to do their own mini-pre-empting.

Colorado state law holds that, “in the interests of uniformity of service,” no local government can provide cable or telecom services, either directly or via a joint venture or a leaseback arrangement, unless no commercial operator provides service anywhere in the municipality or does not agree to do so when asked — or if the voters say the government can, via a ballot initiative aimed at opting out of that Colorado law, known as SB 152.

If these latest initiatives pass, it will make nearly 100 Colorado communities that have “restored” their ability to provide Internet access, according to the Institute for Self-Reliance, a D.C.-based group pushing muni broadband.

“The question continues to be who should decide these matters,” Christopher Mitchell, director of community broadband networks at the institute, said. “We believe the decision should be made at the local level, where people have to live with the consequences of either action or inaction. The big cable and telephone companies prefer to outlaw it from the state capitals, where their lobbyists are more influential and local voices are easier to drown out.”

Those big companies argue that government winds up unfairly subsidizing competition to existing service and can leave taxpayers holding the bag if muni broadband efforts fail.

As to the court keeping the FCC from lending a hand, Mitchell said, “The 6th Circuit decision wasn’t so much a shot against municipal networks as it was the court saying that even though the FCC’s record demonstrating that municipal networks improve Internet access, the battle is still in the states over where and how to allow it.”

Cable Consolidation Unites ACC With CTAM

The Association of Cable Communicators — known as the Cable Television Public Affairs Association for its first 22 years of existence, from 1985 to 2006 — is folding into CTAM (the marketing-focused professional association) later this year.

ACC will go away, but CTAM will take on the work of supporting public-relations staffers at cable providers and programmers. And programs like the Beacon Awards for public-affairs campaigns will continue: 45 awards were handed out this past June, including the Golden Beacon saluting MTV Networks’ Transgender Awareness Week.

Consolidation, especially among big cable providers, had eroded the ACC membership base over time, as had factors including the spread of statewide franchises that led to fewer public-affairs staffers at operators around the country, ACC activists (including fulltime executive director Steve Jones) noted.

From a peak of perhaps 700 individual members, Jones said, the organization now has around half that number.

It’s interesting to note, though, that CTPAA could have launched initially as an arm of CTAM, as former president Andy Holdgate noted in a history of the group’s first two decades.

CTAM has always closely with CTPAA and ACC, so it was perhaps an inevitable outcome, though it took more than three decades to get there. CTAM CEO Vicki Lins told The Wire last week she saw the new union as “two halves coming together to form a greater whole.”

Both organizations’ boards voted unanimously to combine, though it will take a while to sort out the final details.

— Kent Gibbons

In hammering against the AT&T-Time Warner deal last week, some individual groups appeared to be treating the CEO of Time Warner as “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.” OK, we know, Lord Voldemort is a TW employee, sort of, but that is strictly in his capacity as the archest of arch villains in the Harry Potter tales.

For example, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), in his letter to the Department of Justice slamming the deal, proposal referred only to “the CEO of Time Warner” decrying all those millions in stock options that could be coming his way.

Having dutifully added the name of Time Warner CEO “Jeff Bewkes” to those nameless reports on the pushback, The Wire was momentarily panicked when the Senate Judiciary Committee sent out this notice last week about the oversight hearing on the deal: “Both Randall Stephenson, the CEO of AT&T, and Robert Marcus, the CEO of Time Warner, will testify.”

Could we have been wrong, or perhaps this was a case of “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-Correctly.”

As readers of these pages know, Marcus is the now-former CEO of Time Warner Cable who also exited with millions in the bank after the Charter Communications merger.

Within 15 minutes, which is nanoseconds in D.C. time, the committee had sent as a follow-up an amended announcement with Bewkes where Marcus had been, plus an apology for any confusion.

Accepted.

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) has joined the parade poking the Federal Communications Commission for what many see as Google-friendliness on various fronts.

The Tom Wheeler-led FCC is hardly the first commission to generate speculation about the influence of the powerful search engine. One media wag, for example, once christened Julius Genachowski “Googlechowski,” suggesting he was a kindred regulatory spirit when it came to imposing network-neutrality regulations on Internet-service providers while not regulating edge providers. Genachowski told then-National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Kyle McSlarrow that the focus was not Google, but “the next Google.”

But with chairman Wheeler insisting edge providers are beyond the FCC’s regulatory reach, and proposing a set-top box regime that could give Google access to multichannel video providers’ set-top data, the chatter about this Google’s rise as a lobbying power inside the Beltway has become something of a drumbeat.

Beating that drum last week in a blog post, with accompanying cartoon, was the TPA, which illustrated a blog by its president, David Williams, with a cartoon (pictured) depicting a particularly telling renovation at FCC headquarters.

Asked about Wheeler’s alleged Google-centricity, a spokesperson for the chairman responded: “Chairman Wheeler’s proposals aim to give consumers access to increased innovation, improved access to critical communications networks and more competition. These policies — from preventing fast lanes on the Internet to opening up wireless airwaves for new mobile technologies — are intended to empower consumers rather than favor any particular company.”

— John Eggerton

NCTA Talks to NAB, Hopes Confabs Can Minimize Conflicts

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association and the National Association of Broadcasters often find themselves on opposites sides of policy arguments.

Next April, their main conventions also are in (partial) conflict. The next NAB Show is April 22-27 in Las Vegas, and NCTA’s next INTX: The Internet & Television Expo is April 26-28 in Washington, D.C.

The NAB Show is far bigger than INTX, with a reported 103,012 attending and 1,874 exhibiting this past April. The NCTA doesn’t report INTX figures but predicted at least 8,000 would attend the May gathering in Boston. A non-NCTA source told The Wire about 6,500 attendees and 170 companies ended up being there. But when INTX is in NCTA’s hometown of D.C., the attendance numbers rise as government figures can attend easily.

NCTA officials recently thanked speakers who helped out at NCTA and said they were working to minimize conflicts resulting from the schedule clash. (INTX booked its D.C. date in 2010.) How so? Mainly by working with the broadcasters’ group on when to book key public-policy speakers, NCTA senior director of communications Joy Sims said.

NAB executive VP of communications Dennis Wharton confirmed the effort at convention comity, saying, “We are working closely with our friends at NCTA to make sure FCC commissioners and other public policy folks can attend both the NAB Show 2017 and INTX.”

If only Congress could be so cooperative.

— Kent Gibbons

‘Versailles’ in NYC: Ovation Sends French Fare to Ad Agencies

To promote the Oct. 1 premiere of costume drama Versailles, Ovation TV is sending a French street-food truck to New York City ad agencies this week. On Monday it’s at MediaCom USA, Mindshare, Maxus and Meta, 498 Seventh Ave.; Tuesday, it’s at OMD at 195 Broadway; Wednesday, Carat at 150 E. 42 St.; Thursday, Mediavest and Starcom at 1675 Broadway; and Friday, UM, Initiative and BPN at 100 W. 33 St., per the network.

Bon appétit!

Last week’s tipoff of March Madness brought on a mad rush of new apps and services from pay TV providers, ad-tech vendors and programmers that are tailored for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

On the streaming front, NCAA March Madness Live, an app for the tourney developed in partnership by the NCAA, Turner Sports and CBS Sports, is available across what they say is a record 12 platforms.

Those lending support this year include the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, Roku players and Roku TVs, Amazon Fire tablets, iOS and Android mobile devices, Windows handsets, Web browsers, and even the Apple Watch. Additionally, viewers can access all games broadcast on CBS “with no registration required” on desktops as well as smartphones and tablets. Live streams will also be offered on digital platforms from TBS, TNT, truTV and CBS, as well as via participating TV provider websites and apps.

The NCAA March Madness Live app for the Apple TV offers a split-screen feature that lets users stream two live games at the same time.

Dish Network is literally doubling that with last week’s debut of “Sports Bar Mode,” a feature for its new 4K-capable Hopper 3 DVR that divides the TV screen into quadrants, with each displaying a different live TV program. That feature, also called “multiview” and offered on any Hopper 3 that’s connected to a 4K or HD set, decodes four streams, stitches them together and displays them simultaneously. The feature takes advantage of the tuner-rich Hopper 3, which sports 16 of them.

Comcast is also focusing on the big screen with the debut of a basketball “Extras” for its X1 Sports app that syncs up stats with live programming and relies on tech from OneTwoSee, the Philadelphia-based startup that Comcast acquired earlier this month.

The interactive app provides in-game, team-by-team stats such as steals, rebounds and foul counts, as well as a view of the updated tournament bracket. Post-game, the app feeds a recap of the matchup, including by-quarter scores and the “Xfinity Player of the Game.”

For the tourney’s Final Four round, the app will also let users pull up full-team rosters and detailed individual player stats, including shooting percentages by court location.

The tourney also created an opening for media data specialist 4C to take the wraps off Sports Sync, a platform that enables brands and other partners to deliver ads on social networks including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in concert with a specific live sports moment, such as a slam dunk or a game-changing three-point shot.

Several brands have signed on for Sports Sync for March Madness, 4C said, but the company wasn’t at liberty yet to name them. 4C also has built a version of its platform that triggers digital ads around political TV spots, as well as shifts in the weather.

Not all ad inventory is created equal, according to Aaron Goldman, 4C’s chief marketing officer. 4C’s approach is about delivering an ad message “when attentions are heightened,” he said.

— Jeff Baumgartner

‘Dirty Charades’ Behind the Scenes of ‘Skin Wars'

 Body-painting competition Skin Wars is GSN’s top original series, and behind the scenes it often takes hours for the painters to create their masterpieces on their nearly naked human canvases.

Host Rebecca Romijn and sejudge RuPaul Charles lamented during the network’s March 8 upfront presentation that episodes could take as long as 14 hours to tape as they literally and painstakingly watched paint dry.

They played games to pass the time, such as “Dirty Charades.” It’s like the traditional pantomime guessing game, but as Charles succinctly described, “It was just dirty.”

Michael Levitt said it was often di_ cult to begin shooting after several rounds of charades, because the host couldn’t stop laughing at the risqué gamesmanship.

Romijn quipped that the game’s content and gestures probably wouldn’t be suitable for air. “I don’t think you’re going to see our game on GSN anytime soon.”

— R. Thomas Umstead

NEW YORK — “Stick with the people, always go with the people,” AMC Networks president of national advertising sales Arlene Manos said when it was her turn to share life lessons, career advice and a funny story or two as a Multichannel News Wonder Woman.

Manos, one of 13 executives in the current class of Wonder Women (as chosen by the editors of this magazine), followed her own advice 25 years ago in accepting a job officer as an account executive at A&E Network. She turned down a higher-paying position at a magazine she discreetly didn’t identify during her remarks at the celebratory luncheon last Thursday (March 10).

Manos got a promotion to management a year later. And she didn’t need to threaten violence, as fellow Wonder Woman Karen Grinthal, the Scripps Networks Interactive senior vice president of national ad sales, said she did in the late 1980s.

Grinthal told 700-plus attendees at the Hilton New York that she had been passed over for promotion to management three times when she started out at “male bastion” Turner Broadcasting System. When a fourth opportunity arose, she put aside the presentation she had prepared and got a baseball bat from the sports department. She held it over her boss’s head and told him, “This e_ ng job is mine — give it to me.”

“And that’s how I became a manager in the cable industry,” Grinthal said, in one of the day’s better punchlines.

Megan Clarken, president of global product leadership at Nielsen, and Cindi Hook, senior vice president, general auditor and global risk officer at Comcast, became business leaders after injuries short-circuited planned careers as, respectively, a track-and-field athlete and a dancer.

Clarken — who had left school at 16 and became “a broken-down athlete” in her late 20s — found in herself “a determination to be the very best there was at something, a resilience to never give up, a curiosity to listen, ask and learn — and an acknowledgement that you cannot do it on your own.”

Hook said that when it came time to choose a new path “shockingly, ‘general auditor’ and ‘global risk officer’ wasn’t on the menu of career choices.”

But it turns out the jobs require similar skills, she said. A mantra for ballerinas is, “If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not doing it right,” she said, adding, “When we are doing our work as auditors and risk evaluators, if getting to the right answer doesn’t sometimes hurt a bit, you’re not doing it right.”

Fox Group executive vice president of litigation Jill Ratner was a skilled soccer player whose love of sports led to a career in the law. While on the University of California at Los Angeles soccer team, she helped found a group that threatened to sue the school over failure to provide equal opportunities for men and women athletes. She learned about “teamwork, standing up for what I believe in, perseverance and the power of the law.”

Stephanie McMahon, chief brand officer of WWE and daughter of the wrestling entertainment firm’s chairman, Vince McMahon, and former, CEO Linda McMahon, told a story about learning that women shouldn’t feel they have to “do it all” all the time, and “it’s OK to let go a little bit and rely on our support systems to help care for our children.”

Her daughter, Murphy, was sad that McMahon was unable to be at school to see Murphy’s second-grade project about endangered sea turtles because of the Wonder Women luncheon. McMahon’s husband, wrestler Paul “Triple H” Levesque, filled in admirably, and father and daughter had a great bonding experience. “And now I get to go home and show them proof that Mommy really is a Wonder Woman.”

“All working women, mothers or not, are going to have to make personal sacrifices,” McMahon said. “It will never be an even balance. You do the best you can to prioritize and make it work.”

Pam Kaufman, the chief marketing officer and president of consumer products at Nickelodeon Group, recalled starting at Nick 18 years ago when she was “a young, naïve executive” who was eight months’ pregnant with her daughter, Amanda. She questioned whether or not she could handle a new job, a new company, leading a new team and still have “something left” for her family. It all worked out — and along the way she learned it’s important to always be nice to everyone, to stay curious and “don’t be afraid of what you don’t know.”

ESPN senior vice president of multimedia sales Patricia Betron said her mom, who returned to being a nurse to support her family after divorce, relied on babysitters, friends and relatives to help look after her four young kids. That was stressful on everyone, especially Betron and her siblings.

Then, in 2005, Betron served on an ESPN task force studying work-life balance issues — which, with support from key executives, led the company to build an on-site childcare center.

“I share this story with you today because, as we celebrate these Wonder Women, we celebrate how having women in high-ranking positions changes the conversation in our companies,” she said.

More of these stories — and those of fellow Wonder Women Nicole Buie, vice president of marketing at Cox Media; Holly Jacobs, EVP of U.S. reality and syndicated programming at Sony Pictures Television; Michelle Rice, EVP of content distribution and marketing at TV One; Savalle Sims, EVP and deputy general counsel at Discovery Communications; and Ellen Stone, EVP of marketing at Bravo and Oxygen Media — will be available as videos soon on mcnwonderwomen.com. Click here for photos from the luncheon. For more Wonder Women coverage, visit multichannel.com/mcnww.

Donald Trump for months has been viewed inside the Beltway as engaging political theater, a party “renegade” and a gift to pundits on both sides of the aisle.

But after his Super Tuesday delegate haul — not a sweep, but a strong showing that solidifies his front-runner status — “President Trump” is no longer a laugh line.

Well, almost.

A Washington-based telecommunications lawyer, no fan of the candidate, was still taking the suggestion with a healthy dose of arch humor last week in responding to a request for input on what the telecom policy bent of a Trump administration would be.

Actual Trump Statement: “We’re going to build a great wall on the border with Mexico and the Mexicans will pay for it!”

Translation to Telecommunications Policy: Disband the FCC’s International Bureau and require any licensee with even 1% foreign ownership to leave the country (that means you, Sprint and T-Mobile).

Actual Trump Statement: “We have to stop all Muslims from entering the U.S. until we can figure out what the hell is going on!”

Translation to Telecommunications Policy: Block all Internet traffic originating from Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt, and every other majority Muslim country.

Actual Trump Statement: “I had a lousy earpiece.”

Translation to Telecommunications Policy: Ban NPR.

A President Trump, arguably the first thin-skinned elephant in captivity, might want to ban the media in general. He has called them “horrible” people and said as president he would try to make it easier to apply libel laws to penalize journalistic “hit” pieces.

Despite his media antipathy though, he remains a TV hit: Early Nielsen numbers showed that March 3’s Republican debate on Fox News Channel tallied 16.9 million viewers, making it the highest-rated debate of 2016 and the second-highest-rated telecast in Fox News’s almost 20-year history.

— John Eggerton

Azteca America Brings Its Upfront to Buyers

Last May, executives at Azteca America, like their counterparts at other U.S. Hispanic networks, held an upfront event in New York where they talked up programming plans and partied with ad buyers. Some of the net’s executives even performed in a “Chicago”-style number at the event.

This year, the network, owned by Mexican broadcaster TV Azteca, is ditching the song-and-dance routine for four smaller meetings and parties with clients in Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and … New York.

“Rather than waiting for all the clients to come to this hectic week in New York, we decided to take the upfront to them beforehand,” CEO Manuel Abud told The Wire.

But don’t media buyers expect a big production and enjoy the bustle of Hispanic Upfront Week in New York? “Honestly I’m not sure that’s the case,” he said. “If you look at the schedule, there’s a lot of people trying to do that, and we think it’s going to be better for the businesses to take the upfront to them. I guess we’ll see.”

Thus far, he said, buyers seem to like the approach — two days of client meetings with a party at the end, on a smaller scale than last year’s Best Buy Theatre production.

How did last year’s upfront sales do? “OK, not as great as I wanted us to do but we had decent growth,” Abud said — another reason to change things up a bit.

By the time the week of May 16 rolls around, and Univision and MundoMax (who’ve already announced plans) and others are doing their upfronts in New York, Abud and company will have wrapped their gatherings in Los Angeles (March 30), Chicago (April 5), New York (April 13) and Dallas (April 21).

Abud, who joined as CEO in May 2014, said the Azteca America pitch revolves around Mexican soccer and a primetime schedule of a game show at 7 p.m., a reality show at 8, a newsmagazine at 9 and an action series at 10. “It’s working. It’s a good combination, it’s a good alternative.”
— Kent Gibbons

“So this is Christmas/And what have you done …”

AMC’s answer to that question, posed in “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, is an all-star concert honoring the late Beatle, who would have turned 75 this past Oct. 9.

The show, produced with Blackbird Presents and emceed by Kevin Bacon, took place Saturday, Dec. 5, at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. A two-and-a-half-hour version airs Saturday, Dec. 19, as Imagine: John Lennon 75th Birthday Concert at 9 p.m. (ET/PT) on AMC.

The Wire assumed AMC’s corporate ties to MSG played a role, but programming executive Joel Stillerman said Blackbird’s Keith Wortman brought the idea to AMC, booked the building and got the performers (including Steven Tyler, Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson and The Roots) without any such help.

AMC, though, had put out the word earlier this year that it was on the lookout for nonfiction programming “against a filter of things that feel event-like,” either in the form of documentary series like The Making of the Mob or live happenings like concerts.

“We thought [Lennon] was the right artist to do this with, and it was the right time,” Stillerman, president of original programming and development for AMC and SundanceTV, told The Wire a few days after the show.

While under discussion for several months, the concert event was fairly recently greenlit, Stillerman said. The theater, though, was filled that festive Saturday night with Lennon fans who bought tickets and others, including The Wire, invited as guests.

The house band, led by Don Was and Greg Phillinganes, was tight and the performances felt spontaneous — sometimes very much so. Only one song had to be done twice, to fi x a lighting issue during Spoon’s lively “Hey Bulldog.”

Stillerman, who worked on many live shows at MTV and as an independent producer before joining AMC, said the whole thing was remarkably drama-free. “Everybody just felt like they seriously wanted to be there for one reason, which was to honor a guy that they loved and who was hugely influential on them.”

“Happy Xmas” is definitely on the menu — performed by Aloe Blacc, Sheryl Crow and Peter Frampton — and Stillerman thought it was a highlight of the show. The Wire also enjoyed Willie Nelson’s “Imagine,” Blacc’s “Watching the Wheels” and the Brandon Flowers (of The Killers) version of “Instant Karma,” among others.

“We’re happy we did this,” Stillerman said, asked if viewers should expect more concerts from the home of The Walking Dead. “We love sort of defying expectations at AMC and trying things that are a little out of our comfort zone. I really think we got very fortunate with a night that felt like it had the right spirit, that had some great moments, that had some great emerging artists step up and blow people away in a very unexpected way. If there’s an opportunity to try and replicate that, we will, but no plans right now.”

— Kent Gibbons

Keeping Eyes On the Ball

Old acquaintances may be forgot, but media outlets with bigger plans than budgets should not forget that there is a free feed — hosts included — of the New Year’s Eve festivities in New York’s Times Square.

The Times Square Alliance is again teaming with Countdown Entertainment to provide a “clean” uninterrupted, HD satellite/fiber feed for domestic and international television outlets, broadcasters, cable networks and websites.

The feed will be hosted by Allison Hagendorf and three correspondents will cover the action, from the ball-raising ceremony to stage performances to the dropping of the ball at midnight.

Why is it free? “This is a public-private partnership … No one pays a ticket to come into Times Square, and we want to make it available to the broadcasters covering the event for free, too,” Countdown Entertainment president Jeff Straus told The Wire. That extends to cable operators and webmasters as well.

— John Eggerton

NEW YORK — It wasn’t high art, but as roasts go, the one for Vice Media founder and CEO Shane Smith during a fundraiser for the Center for Communications Nov. 18 briefly showed a different side of the notorious media bad boy, who was given the Center’s Frank Stanton Award for Excellence in Communication.

Stanton was president of CBS from 1946 to 1971, overseeing the network’s Golden Age for journalists like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. Roasts are notoriously di_ cult to do, and not every joke hit its mark — there were a lot about Smith’s weight and prodigious appetites: he reportedly spent $300,000 on a single dinner with friends in Las Vegas during the International CES in January.

But amid the Sex Pistols intro music (Smith’s favorite band) and the steady stream of F-bombs — even from so-called staid TV executives — former Viacom CEO and current Vice board member Tom Freston offered a peek at a side of Smith most don’t see.

Freston got one of the biggest laughs, reading a list of “poignant” late-night texts he supposedly received from Smith. Examples: “You calm down, you Minnesota dust climber!” and “Cross your balls, we’re going in!”

But Freston also read one that Smith sent to him on Nov. 13, while Freston, HBO chief Richard Plepler (also a presenter) and Time Warner Inc. chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes were having dinner in Paris (they were there for a U2 concert that was later canceled) mere blocks away from the terrorist attacks that night.

“Before we knew what was really going on, I heard a ping and I reached for my iPhone and read this message: ‘F**k dude, get out of there. Come home to me and be safe,’ ” Freston said. “That’s sort of Shane; he’s on all the time.”

— Mike Farrell

Comcast’s Alchin Shares a Coming Out Story at Film Screening

The LGBT community was out in force Nov. 23 for a special Washington, D.C., premiere screening of Comcast’s Focus Features film unit’s The Danish Girl, about Lili Elbe, the first recipient of sexual reassignment surgery.

In attendance were cast members and filmmakers, including director Tom Hooper and co-star Alicia Vikander. Star Eddie Redmayne, who plays Elbe and who won the Best Actor Oscar for Focus’s The Theory of Everything last year, was out of the country, but made apologies via video.

Also on hand at the Burke Theater at the U.S. Navy Memorial were Emmy winner Jeffrey Tambor and Bradley Whitford of Amazon Studios’s Transgender. Tambor also is familiar for a recent DirecTV ad campaign savaging large cable companies.

Introducing Hooper before the film was John Alchin, former co-chief financial officer of Comcast, who noted that the fact he is gay warranted a front-page story in a Philadelphia newspaper two decades ago. He said the reaction from Comcast’s Brian Roberts was, “good,” with him saying Alchin had made the company proud. Alchin said that when he told Brian’s father, Ralph, about his son’s comment, the late Comcast co-founder replied that he wasn’t surprised, as he had taught Brian everything he knew.

Alchin talked about the LGBT community’s progress toward “recognition, equality and inclusion.” But he suggested the fight continues, pointing to Houston, where an anti-discrimination ordinance was recently defeated.

“We still have lots more work to do,” Alchin said.

He also talked about Comcast’s “dedication to featuring diverse and independent voices on film and television” and pointed out that Comcast carries more than 160 independent networks.

Comcast has repeatedly been cited as among the best places to work for LGBT employees by the Human Rights Campaign.

— John Eggerton

At a dinner last week celebrating his 20th year as host of HBO’s sports magazine show Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel, veteran TV journalist Bryant Gumbel said the show’s mission to cover the issues, personalities and controversies of the sports world hasn’t changed since its launch in 1995.

And, in Gumbel’s view, that keeps his Peabody Award-winning show unique.

More than 220 episodes and 28 Sports Emmys later, Gumbel said that not enough of today’s sports media outlets are as committed to delivering hard-hitting, investigative news stories as Real Sports is.

“I still think what passes for sports coverage is sadly sycophantic,” the 67-year-old Gumbel told The Wire during the dinner at New York’s Aureole restaurant. “Obviously there are exceptions — I’d like to see more exceptions — but the money has become so big now and there’s so much competition that it’s di_ cult for a show that’s interested in pursuing truth to find subjects to do it with, because they all have their own networks.”

Gumbel called the athlete-supported The Player’s Tribune website a shining example of the new sports outlets that blur the lines of news, social media and public relations. On that site, athletes post their own stories and videos in an effort to talk directly to the fans.

“This is what it’s come to?” Gumbel said. “That’s where you go to tell your story? And we’re supposed to believe that? The version [of a story] you want is the one we’re supposed to buy — no questions asked? That’s a bad world.”

As to whether today’s sports media has tainted the viewer’s perception of sports news, Gumbel said he’s not sure the modern viewer “can discern the difference between a well-researched, objective, critical piece and an infomercial. My suspicion is not, and that’s kind of sad.”

Gumbel’s show returns with a new episode on Sunday, Dec. 22.

— R. Thomas Umstead

Cristiano Ronaldo’s Altice Ads Headed to U.S. Airwaves

When European telecom giant Altice gains a foothold in the United States — after completing the purchase of Suddenlink Communications, expected to happen before year’s end — U.S. audiences will start seeing the French telecommunications firm’s ads with its new spokesman, Portugese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ronaldo is one of the world’s bestknown athletes. At the London premiere of his self-produced year-in-the-life film, Ronaldo, he was given a plaque commemorating his stature as the “most liked” person on Facebook.

Altice said the Real Madrid star’s “speed and power complement the international development of the Altice Group’s core businesses: high-speed broadband (fiber and 4G), content and media.”

Altice ads featuring “CR7” will soon be seen in Portugal, France and Israel, and adapted later in Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Dominican Republic and the United States. Altice also is buying Cablevision Systems, for $17.7 billion, but that deal is expected to close after the Suddenlink merger.

— Mike Farrell

Bill O’Reilly’s recent comments on Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor regarding the “Black Lives Matter” movement have spurred a fierce Twitter reaction from Roland Martin, host of TV One’s News One Now. Martin wants to confront O’Reilly on-air regarding the protest movement involving mostly young African-Americans calling for change following several controversial police shootings of unarmed black men.

O’Reilly called the Black Lives Matter movement “a hate group” after a video emerged of some movement protesters in Minnesota chanting that police were “pigs in a blanket” in the aftermath of the shooting death of a Texas sheriff. O’Reilly also said he plans to put the movement “out of business,” and would publicly out any journalist who supports the Black Lives Matter movement.

Since then, Martin said he has unsuccessfully lobbied O’Reilly’s producers to appear on The O’Reilly Factor to debate the popular news/talk host about what he calls misconceptions about the movement. Martin also has made several Twitter posts calling out O’Reilly, as well as CNN’s Don Lemon and other TV news personalities, for “nonsense” they’ve stated regarding Black Lives Matter.

This past week (Sept. 9), Martin upped the ante on Twitter, saying “I Challenge @FoxNews, @oreillyfactor, @megynkelly @TheFive @ TheJuanWilliams to debate me about #Black-LivesMatter facts.”

“When somebody lies and distorts the truth they should be held accountable for it,” Martin told The Wire. “He opened the door by saying if there are any journalists out there who support Black Lives Matter, he’s going to put them on the network and call them out. And I said fine, I’ll raise my hand.

“I just want to correct the record. I don’t believe that people should go on and say things that are factually incorrect — if you disagree with a movement, fine, but you are going to be held accountable if you flat-out lie,” Martin said. “There are things that Bill O’Reilly has said that are simply not true, so we are certainly going to hold his feet to the fire and others as well.”

Fox News did not respond for comment. 

— R. Thomas Umstead

FCC Dish Decision Draws Praise From ‘Porker’ Patrol

Dish Network was featured in the most recent issue of the Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) e-newsletter, but it probably would just as soon not have been.

CAGW gave the FCC a shout-out for unanimously denying Dish-affiliated designated entities Northstar Wireless, LLC and SNR Wireless — satellite-TV provider Dish owns 85% of both, through a joint venture — over $3 billion in bidding credits in the agency’s AWS-3 wireless spectrum auction. That means $3 billion more into the U.S. Treasury, which is getting a chunk of the auction proceeds after the funding of FirstNet and some research.

Calling it a victory for taxpayers, CAGW president Tom Schatz said: “The FCC auctions are a valuable method to increase the availability of spectrum, increase innovation, and raise money for taxpayers. The process must meet the highest standards of fairness and integrity.”

It’s no big surprise that the FCC’s decision would make news with CAGW, best known for its “porker” awards for its identification of what it says is government waste. (Dish memorably sent up cable companies as greedy pigs in ads about a decade ago, so turnabout might be fair play.) CAGW teamed up with other taxpayer groups to ask the FCC to deny the credits back in May, saying a grant would come “at the peril of [the FCC’s] already diminishing credibility.” Ouch.

Dish saw it quite differently, suggesting its participation was one of the big reasons the auction raked in so much dough in the first place.

“Our approach to the AWS-3 auction, which followed 20 years of FCC precedent and complied with all legal requirements, was intended to enhance competition — in the auction and in the marketplace long-term,” Dish senior vice president and deputy general counsel Jeff Blum told The Wire.

— John Eggerton

From a leased-access weekend program on a local broadcast-TV station, to an online channel that’s also on Roku and Comcast’s free video-on-demand platform, to additional VOD rollouts and placement on Amazon Fire TV — Chris Pati’s IndiMusic TV is boxing the electronic media compass.

The Long Island, N.Y.- based music-industry veteran (as a performer and producer) said his channel has progressed to the point where he doesn’t have to pay for TV time, as he did when he debuted a show playing music videos on WLNY in 2004. He says that show, when it aired at 10 p.m. on Saturdays, would draw an 0.8 or 0.9 rating, on par with Judge Judy. He sold enough local commercials to make the arrangement work.

Now his IndiMusic TV free-on-demand channel on Comcast (in about six states) operates on an advertising revenue-share basis. That will be the case when the service launches this month on Verizon FiOS TV’s free VOD platform, too, though he said Verizon initially pitched him a linear channel that would cost $60,000 per month. His service also is slated to launch on Dish Network this month as a VOD channel. Pati figures the distribution collectively will be about 30 million pay-TV homes.

But the VOD channel is really more about brand extension (and some ad cash) and another step in the evolution of what he hopes will ultimately be a hybrid of TV, electronic commerce and social media.

The formula is there now on website indimusic.tv. Launched in 2012, it offers musicians the opportunity to upload one video per month for free, or pay up to $199 per year to upload an unlimited number of videos. Most artists (about 80%) take the free option.

While the video plays, a dropdown menu appears that offers viewers the option of buying CDs, merchandise or tickets. All the money goes to the artists, Pati said. “You can buy and you never leave the broadcast.” That interactive feature, developed with Linkstorm, is what Pati would like to bring to television, and said he’s in talks with distributors about potentially making that happen. One of them, he said, is a cable provider that previously pitched him a leased channel.

This relatively new entrant to the pay-TV world — though he has had an Indi- Music TV channel on Roku since 2009 (with 21,000 subscribers) — sees cable and satellite television evolving into a “pipe” model where the distributor passes along third-party-owned content. That’s similar to how music labels have evolved to become mostly distributors, Pati said. “They can’t afford to be in both businesses,” he said of cable companies, a tune some of those firms have sung, as well.

Piling on Pylons: CBS Brings New Views to NFL, Too

The Wire (Aug. 31 edition) had no sooner finished telling the tale of ESPN’s expanded experiment with the Pylon Cam during National Football League contests when CBS said that it, too, will have high-definition cameras embedded into the custom-molded goal-line markers this season. They will feature during selected Thursday Night Football broadcasts on CBS and NFL Network and during NFL On CBS games to capture views from the goal lines and sidelines — and they might be used during the playoffs and Super Bowl 50.

Like ESPN, CBS said its Pylon Cams — developed independently and in consultation with the league — were part of a legacy of TV innovations, such as instant replay, the Telestrator and John Madden’s “CBS Chalkboard.”

CBS also released a short reel on Vimeo of Pylon Cam moments during the Detroit Lions-Jacksonville Jaguars preseason game on Aug. 28. “I love that camera,” play-by-play man Kevin Harlan declares after seeing a Jaguar player step out of bounds, up close and personal.

The NFL told The Wire that only CBS and ESPN are developing their own proprietary Pylon Cams.

During Monday Night Football’s preseason game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Cincinnati Bengals on Aug. 24, the Bucs scored a first-quarter touchdown when quarterback Jameis Winston dove straight toward the pylon on the right corner of the goal line. Providing an outstanding replay opportunity for ESPN’s still-evolving Pylon Cam experiment.

The MNF contest was only the third televised tryout for ESPN’s new on-field addition, following another National Football League exhibition game, between the Buffalo Bills and Cleveland Browns, on Aug. 20 and the Pylon Cam debut during the College Football Playoff National Championship game in Dallas on Jan. 15.

It’s evolved from an initial four pylons with four cameras each to two pylons with eight higher-quality cameras each, according to ESPN.

Marc Rowley, director of production enhancements at ESPN, told The Wire that the pylon cameras that were placed along the line at the back of the end zone didn’t contribute that many great shots, so it made more sense to double down on the pylons that form a touchdown target for players like Winston.

Now, the pylons have 16 cameras in position to capture images of scoring plays at “angles that have never existed before,” capable of digitally zooming in at up to 200% enhancement, Jed Drake, senior vice president, product innovation at ESPN, said.

Eventually, the signature image from the Pylon Cam could be a replay that provides definitive proof of a touchdown that was or wasn’t, at a key moment in a championship game. Until then, as far as Rowley is concerned, “I’ll take Jameis taking a shot at the pylon; that was pretty good.”

After evaluating the results so far and in consultation with the NFL, Pylon Cams might make regular appearances during the Monday Night Football regular season, which kicks off with a Sept. 14 doubleheader — Philadelphia Eagles vs. Atlanta Falcons (6:55 p.m.) and Minnesota Vikings vs. San Francisco 49ers (10:20 p.m.) — ESPN said. It might also be used during some college-football games this season.

Social-media responses certainly seemed positive during the Bengals-Buccaneers game. “Finally technology catches up to common sense. #PylonCam #NFL” (Coach Bryan, @DrB365). “Can someone explain why it took until 2015 to have a #pyloncam? #NFL” (ReLando Calrissian, @Reondompls). “In other sports broadcasting news, the @ESPN #PylonCam on Monday Night Football is pretty cool” (Russ Maloney, @russmaloney). Etc.

“We are very optimistic about the future of Pylon Cam,” Drake said, counting it potentially among the First and 10 virtual first-down marker and the Spidercam in ESPN’s pantheon of innovations.

What a Drag … MavTV Speeds to Canada for Subs

MAVTV, the independently owned (by Lucas Oil) motorsports network, is hoping distribution roads lead to Canada soon, as the network builds its way back from a May drop by Dish Network, mostly via launches on smaller distributors in the National Cable Television Cooperative. Today (Aug. 31) it plans to announce recent additions by the likes of Harlan Municipal Utilities, Windstream and Walnut Telephone Co., along with the previously disclosed pickup by Suddenlink Communications on that operator’s sports tier.

“We’re up there this week trying to ink some distribution deals, so I think realistically MAVTV will be available in Canada first quarter of next year the way things are shaping up,” network president Bob Patison told The Wire.

The purveyor of such “adrenaline” racing events as motocross, drag boats and sprint cars has also expanded with Frontier Communications systems and Google Fiber, Patison said, downplaying the impact of being dropped from tier placement on Dish and saying there’s still hope of reinstatement. The loss was of about 1.7 million subscribers, he said. MAVTV has 28 million subscribers and is on such big distributors as DirecTV, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications and Cablevision Systems.

MAVTV also plans to up its quotient of live events, Patison said, beyond such current mainstays as pro motocross events, “King of the Cage” mixed martial arts and the annual Chili Bowl midget-car racing extravaganza in Tulsa, Okla. This January’s Chili Bowl will be the 30th anniversary, so plans are set for a one-hour pre-event show, hosted by Dave Despain, Patison said.

TCM Campaign Puts ‘Oz’ on the Broad Side of a Barn

Turner Classic Movies is going after younger viewers who like to socialize around movies with a new branding campaign — above the tagline “Let’s Movie” — the first such outreach in about a decade for the Turner Broadcasting System-owned channel.

New on-air and online spots show groups gathering to watch, for example, The Wizard of Oz projected onto the side of a Kansas barn, John Wayne in The Searchers played off a butte in Monument Valley and Ben Hur on the outside walls of The Colosseum in Rome.

“We want to appeal to broader movie lovers, not just classic movie lovers,” Jennifer Dorian, TCM’s general manager, told The Wire.

The message: ‘These iconic films should be enjoyed by everyone and they’re timeless, so if you love movies, check them out. It’s about getting people together and everybody making an event out of seeing an iconic film.”

Here’s where the clever spots will be seen, starting Sept. 1: on TCM’s air; on TCM.com; cross-promoted on CNN.com; on TBS, TNT and CNN Airport Network and on electronic billboards in New York and Atlanta and on-screen ads in some 750 movie theatres across the country.

There also will be a social-media campaign — #LetsMovie — building toward a “LetsMovie” holiday on Sept. 19, when TCM will encourage fans to watch films with family and friends and share their experiences socially.

Dorian also hopes to stage live events in iconic locations, possibly including a Rocky screening on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

“We feel like we’re the movie place, so let’s movie,” she said.

A downpour of TV content is forecast for this week on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation it unleashed on the Gulf Coast region in general and on New Orleans in particular.

In 2005, cable networks were among the first outlets to show the images of the stunning destruction to property and people’s lives in the days following the storm. Other specials through the years, such as HBO’s Emmy-winning When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, helped chronicle the effects on life on the Gulf Coast in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

This week The Weather Channel is leading the charge with a week of Katrina-themed content, including Katrina 2065, a special that looks at likely scenarios that could take place if Katrina hit 50 years from now. On Friday, Aug. 28, TWC will air a special report, Katrina: 10 Years Later, with Al Roker and Stephanie Abrams.

Also that Friday, TV One will look at the plight of education in New Orleans a decade after Katrina as part of its daily News One Now morning news series hosted by Roland Martin.

BET on Aug. 26 will premiere a news special, Katrina 10 Years Later: Through Hell in High Water, that will chronicle the lives of a diverse group of people who survived Katrina.

On the cable news network front, CNN will debut on Aug. 24 Katrina: The Storm That Never Stopped, in which network anchor Anderson Cooper travels back to the Gulf Coast and looks to reconnect with those residents and people he spoke with a decade ago following the storm.

On the digital front, offerings will include six-part documentary series New Orleans, Here & Now, from Time Inc. and Rampante, debuting Aug. 27 on Time.com and other platforms. It’s about six people living in New Orleans 10 years after Hurricane Katrina and is the first original premium video product from Time. Weather.com on Aug. 25 will stream nine hours of continuous highlights from 2005 Katrina coverage, starting at the same time as the 2005 coverage began and featuring clips from The Weather Channel.

And in real life (apart from TV), FYI has teamed with the affordable housing non-profit Make It Right to build a solar-powered new tiny home in New Orleans for a middle school teacher. On Aug. 28, they will host a house-warming event at the new 469-square-foot domicile in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward, including Tiny House Nation host John Weisbarth.

— R. Thomas Umstead

Think Tank to FCC: Charter-TWC Deal Should Sail Through

Free-market think tank The Free State Foundation has released a paper outlining the benefits to consumers and broadband of a Charter Communications-Time Warner Cable merger.

Free State senior fellow Seth Cooper said the purpose is not to endorse or oppose the deal, but instead to outline the key considerations the Federal Communications Commission should be, well, considering. But Cooper clearly likes the cut of the deal’s jib and suggests it deserves fairly smooth sailing through the FCC and DOJ deal-vetting process.

He said the potential downsides for consumers appear minimal, and maybe nonexistent, and drew a distinction between this proposed merger and Comcast’s earlier play for TWC, abandoned after the Justice Department and the FCC agreed it should not go through.

Concerns about program withholding or broadband domination don’t apply to a Charter- TWC deal, Cooper said (though he does not concede they should have deep-sixed the earlier deal, either). “Whereas Comcast-TWC would have resulted in a nationwide broadband consumer subscription market share of about 30%, Charter-TWC would result in a nationwide broadband market share of about 21%. And those are numbers for wireline broadband only. The broadband market is much bigger: 43% of all broadband connections are now mobile, with next-generation wireless networks increasingly offering consumers three or more competitive mobile video viewing options.”

In any event, he said, the FCC should not look at “static” indicators like market share or concentration, but instead view the deal in the light of free-market dynamism, a light in which the deal looks good for consumer welfare, he said.

Cooper also called for a swift review, which may already be a bridge too far. The FCC at press time had yet to launch the comment cycle or start the informal shot clock on the deal, as it is still mulling the issue of how to treat third-party access to confidential information submitted by the parties involved.

— John Eggerton

BET raised some eyebrows on Aug. 4 when it tweeted a plan to bring back the network’s controversial and edgy BETUncut video show on Aug. 11, nine years after pulling it off the air.

The African-American-targeted network had caught flack for airing the weekly series — which showcased mostly titillating music videos — so it was a surprise that the Viacom-owned programmer would look to bring it back.

BET viewers were even more confused when the network said the series would air at 11 p.m. That’s an early hour, considering that the show used to air at 3 a.m. due to its racy content.

Nevertheless, when it was time for the show to premiere, 501,000 viewers — about 100,000 more than BET drew during the same period a week prior — tuned in to see the new BET Uncut.

But just after the network began to run a “mature audiences only”disclaimer, it was quickly interrupted by BET on-air personalities Andrew Bachelor (King Bach) and DeStorm Power telling viewers that they had been punk’d.

It turns out the lead-up to launching BET Uncut was just an elaborate hoax created to promote BET’s revival of MTV’s 2000s series Punk’d, which the network officially launches this Tuesday (Aug. 18). The remainder of the 30-minute show was filled with previously seen Punk’d clips.

BET president of programming Stephen Hill told The Wire the ruse was all in good fun, for promotion’s sake. “We were fortunate enough to have a lot of good-natured humor and social media energy around it,” he said. “It was clearly in the spirit of the show.”

Once punk’d, twice shy?

— R. Thomas Umstead

To Cox’s Jacqueline Vines, Kudos for a Career Well-Done

The Wire has long admired Jacqueline Vines, the senior vice president and region manager for the Cox Communications Southeast Region, based in Baton Rouge, La. Why? Because she started out in cable as a receptionist for Time Warner Cable, in Dublin, Ohio, in 1984, rising in the ranks to management levels. Cox recruited her in 1992 as vice president of human relations in New Orleans and — after a stopover in San Diego — she further rose to a role where she oversees nearly 2,000 employees in three states. That’s what we call impressive.

Now we know there’s even more to admire: Vines has announced plans to retire at the end of the year, narrowly missing her longtime goal to retire at age 55 (she’s 56). “I’m so blessed to be able to have the resources to be able to retire, and now is the time,” she told the Advocate newspaper. For that, The Wire might add envy to admiration.

We also learned that, remarkably, she adopted three biological sisters in 2009. Then she married Leonard Wyatt two years ago and became stepmom to his three children. “I have three children I adopted at 48 and I got married at 54; I’ve lived my whole life backward,” she also told the Advocate in a nicely turned phrase.

A former foster child, Vines has advocated for children in numerous ways and has been honored for her service (which she plans to continue) by the Louisiana legislature.

Says Cox, in part: “We are truly grateful for all that Jacqui has done, and for the passion she has brought to the job each and every day. Anyone who has had the opportunity to work alongside Jacqui knows that she is a true champion for our employees, our customers, and Cox overall. She will long be remembered for her ability to create lasting connections with her employees, and creating an environment where they can grow and develop.”

— Kent Gibbons

Falling Skies Finale Auction Gets ‘Props’

Premiere Props is auctioning more than 1,500 items from TNT’s Falling Skies at its El Segundo, Calif., headquarters on Aug. 29 and 30 in advance of the series finale, which airs Sunday, Aug. 30, at 10 p.m.

The auction includes items from all five seasons, including Tom Mason’s costume from season five and a life-size skitter creature made out of rubber and foam (life size being about 46 inches by 28 inches by 20 inches, according to a prop house spokesperson, citing a description of the item for the auction).

For those Wire readers who can’t wait to get their mitts on a skitter critter and its “craggy ridges of reptilian skin, glowing eyes, minimal ears and pincer mouth” — OK, we got that from the spokesperson, too — no need to show up day-and-date.

On-site bidding begins 11 a.m. (PT) on Aug. 29. But Wire followers can start bidding now online at icollector.com, liveauctioneers.com and invaluable.com. (OK, so can everybody else, but we won’t tell if you won’t).

Other props on the block include Espheni Overlord’s Glowing Lava Stone and even Cochise’s (Doug Jones) “Volm Field Laser de-Harnessing Machine” for those hard-to-deharness lasers.

Other Premiere clients include Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Miramax, MGM, The Weinstein Co., Sony Screen Gems, Lionsgate and TriStar.

— John Eggerton

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The Television Critics Association tour is known for its unusual and often memorable moments as network executives and talent face the firing line of questions from often-cranky critics. While the cable portion of the TCA was relatively tame with regards to a war of words between critics and on-stage personnel, a few notable exchanges occured over the four-day period.

• Starz CEO Chris Albrecht during his July 31 session took writers to task for perpetuating a perceived war of words between his network and HBO regarding their respective sports-related series, Survivor’s Remorse and Ballers. The day before, HBO president of programming Michael Lombardo had said he wasn’t familiar with Survivor’s Remorse when a writer asked him about a Starz press release that claimed TV critics were more enamored with the basketball-themed series than HBO’s football-focused comedy Ballers, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

After being asked if he had heard of Ballers, Albrecht quickly shot down any beef between the two networks and chided the writer who initially framed the question to HBO. While admitting that “one of our people was out there pitching shows maybe a little bit too ardently” he warned writers to “behave themselves” when asking questions to the stars of Survivor’s Remorse when then came to the stage later that morning, a request that writers honored.

• During network sessions, series producers, directors and stars often look to the press to help promote their projects. But during Discovery Channel’s session on Racing Extinction, a critic asked the documentary’s showrunners what journalists could do to further get out the show’s message that without a serious focus on conservation, the world faces the potential global extinction of numerous species of animals over the next few decades.

Director Louie Psihoyos (The Cove) wasted no time in urging writers to “join the team” by signing up at racingextinction.com for alerts regarding the film, which will air in December.

“Everybody in this room can reach tens of millions of people. That’s huge. That’s a big advantage,” Psihoyos said. “You can magnify [the message] by getting journalists to write about it, getting it on Discovery. It’s all about scaling up.”

• Most cable and broadcast network series showrunners who address the TCA are excited about their projects and openly thank the networks for supporting them. But some critics were taken aback about the almost giddy enthusiasm several producers and showrunners had about working for over-the-top service Netflix, saying that its liberating to have creative freedom and to not to have to worry about ratings or advertiser and network concerns about content.

Reacting to a question about whether it would be hard to go back to working with a network after her Netflix experience, Grace & Frankie showrunner Marta Kauffman said it would be “difficult” working under the more restrictive parameters of traditional television — parameters that the co-creator of NBC’s 1990s mega-hit Friends is familiar with.

“There is this thing about not having to structure a half an hour in six parts … you can’t tell a story in 21 minutes,” Kauffman said. “So I think going back to that kind of difficult, shortened storytelling would be impossible now that I’ve gotten the opportunity to have almost 10 minutes more and let the story tell us how long it should be.”

— R. Thomas Umstead

TCM: Passionate Film-Noir Fans Won’t Cut Class

Zombie shows draw fans in bunches, but film-noir aficionados have more stamina.

That’s one conclusion The Wire drew after hearing the results from a Turner Classic Movies stunt this summer that invited viewers to take an eight-week online course pegged to the channel’s “Summer of Darkness” programming event.

It was the first online course tie-in TCM had tried, general manager Jennifer Dorian explained, and it was a natural one because it fit with an existing Ball State University free course called “Into the Darkness: Investigating Film Noir.” Enrollees on a weekly basis would watch 45-minute videos and educational lectures, read long articles and take quizzes in order to ace the course, administered by Canvas Network. That’s a fair amount of work to obtain a certificate.

The norm for completing what are called massive online open courses is a rate of around 4% or 5%, Dorian said. The “Summer of Darkness” completion rate stands at 14.4% with results still being tallied.

As for zombies: The biggest- ever MOOC was tied in with The Walking Dead, and drew 65,000 enrollees — but only 3% completed it, according to statistics provided by TCM.

Dorian, over iced teas in New York City last week, said she wasn’t very surprised that a relatively high percentage completed the June and July program. “Our fans go deep; they’re committed to their passion for classic cinema,” she said, adding, “I liked the 20,000 people — that impressed me.” Dorian said the TCM programming formula — uncut, commercial-free movies, primarily from the 1900s to 1979, with some “peppering” of more recent films — still worked and won’t be tinkered with or massively modernized. She does want to do more interactive projects like this online course and create “on-ramps” to draw in younger viewers and more casual movie fans.

The “Summer of Darkness” stunt also struck a social-media chord as TCM sent fans a daily dose of two-minute film noir clips and sought their responses on Twitter (#noirsummer). The clips drew TCM’s highest-ever activity Twitter rate, Dorian said, even surpassing the awards-season staple “31 Days of Oscar.”
— Kent Gibbons

Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav has received many honors and financial rewards during his tenure at the programming giant. Yet this past week (June 24), during a Discovery 30th-anniversary celebration at New York’s Paley Center for Media, Zaslav received a unique honor, courtesy of Discovery’s Australian first family of wildlife conservation, the Irwins.

The family of late Crocodile Hunter star Steve Irwin said it will name the largest crocodile it captures after Zaslav as part of its annual crocodile research excursion, during which the family captures and tags the creatures to get a closer look at their habits.

Irwin’s wife, Terri; their 16-year-old daughter, Bindi (who starred in Bindi the Jungle Girl on Discovery Kids) and their 11-year-old son, Robert, told a crowd of luminaries, Discovery executives and reporters about their plans during a panel session hosted by On the Case host Paula Zahn.

“We’re going to catch the biggest and most incredible crocodile and we’re going to name the crocodile David Zaslav,” little Robert Irwin enthusiastically stated.

Added Terri: “We’ll know what [crocodile David] has been eating and how long he holds his breath.”

Joining the Irwins on the panel were Stacey London, star of TLC’s Love Lust or Run, and Sig Hansen, star of Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch. Hansen discussed Discovery’s big risk in giving a platform to high-stakes crab fishing, and the celebrity that the show has brought him and his crew.

Hansen recalled a chance meeting with a New York insurance company CEO earlier that evening outside of the Paley Center who was enamored with meeting the veteran fisherman. “He asked if he could come fish with us and I said get the hell out of here,” Hansen said, igniting a roar of laughter from the crowd.

London, who helped spearhead the fashion makeover genre with TLC’s iconic reality series What Not to Wear, was less than enthusiastic when posed with a request from Hansen to give makeovers to him and his grizzled fishing crew. London jokingly adding that their wardrobe was “not that bad.”

Later that evening, Zaslav expressed to The Wire his personal thoughts on Discovery’s 30th anniversary, saying that he entered the cable business “because of Discovery and [Discovery founder] John Hendricks. Thirty years later I’m at the helm of, I think, the greatest brand on cable.”

— R. Thomas Umstead

Searching for a Hero To Wear a Bandanna In Crowther’s Honor

American Heroes Channel will look to live up to its name by saluting everyday heroes as part its Red Bandanna Hero Award competition, in partnership with USA Today and the Welles Remy Crowther Charitable Trust.

The competition, which launched earlier this month, will span America in search of an everyday hero who exemplifies the American spirit, in recognition of Welles Remy Crowther, a 24-year-old equities trader who saved as many as 12 people before dying during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.

The 60 million-subscriber channel and its partners will honor the ultimate winner of the Red Bandanna Hero Award with a $10,000 donation to the charitable organization of the winner’s choosing, as well as a trip for two to attend the Boston College Red Bandanna Game on Sept. 18.

The game was created to honor Crowther, who attended the university and played lacrosse there, wearing a bandanna under his helmet.

Along with the charitable donation, AHC will create a “Hero Moment” video about the winner that will air on the network and online at ahctv.com.

AHC kicked off its search for America’s Red Bandanna Hero Award winner at the Country Music Awards Festival in Nashville June 13-14. The network transformed the streets of Nashville with giveaways of #WhosYourHero red bandannas, network officials said.

The network has also teamed with select minor-league baseball teams to host special “Red Bandanna” games, where attendees will receive a #WhosYourHero bandanna.

“It’s with great humility and gratitude to their service that we create the Red Bandanna Hero Award in Welles’ memory, to provide Americans everywhere with the opportunity to recognize those like him who answered the call despite insurmountable odds,” Kevin Bennett, general manager of American Heroes Channel, told The Wire.

— R. Thomas Umstead

FCC Briefing Schedule Is Like Feuding Cats With a Lot to Say

Put feuding cats in a legal sack and you get a briefing schedule. Or something like that.

Both sides of the legal challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s new network-neutrality rules — more like three or four sides — have gotten together to propose a briefing schedule they say would allow for oral argument before the end of the year.

Those self-described “separate and conflicting” challengers included Internet service providers challenging Title II reclassification but not the bright-line rules; a voice-over-IP pioneer who is challenging the bright lines; and government officials defending both. Then there is the group challenging the rules because they did not go far enough, as well as the “multiple amici with divergent views and interests to file on all sides of the case.” Sounds like they might need another sack.

It was admittedly a forced marriage of the minds. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed to expedite the case and asked the parties to get together to propose a briefing plan of action.

They did so, telling the court that their proposal “accommodates the divergent interests of the various parties to this complex, consolidated proceeding” — that’s legal-speak for the sackful of battling cats — and said that if the court complied, the case could be fully briefed by October, only four months away, and oral argument scheduled by year’s end.

But just to show you can’t take all the spat out of the battling cats, they also pointed out each petitioner separately proposed a word allocation for their opening brief on which the others took no position.

Jointly, USTelecom, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the American Cable Association, the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, AT&T and CenturyLink have asked the court for 18,000 words. Why? Well, we’ll tell you. Here’s their estimate of how many words it will take:

(A) “The Commission’s reclassification decision is contrary both to the plain text and any reasonable reading of the statute (4,000 words);

(B) “Departs from prior precedent without sufficient identification of changed facts or consideration of reliance interests (3,000 words);

(C) “Was adopted without sufficient notice of the rules or legal authority the Commission ultimately promulgated and relied upon (1,500 words);

(D) “Violates other statutes (500 words).

(E) “Impermissibly impose common carriage duties (750 words);

(F) “The Commission’s decision to extend Title II regulation to broadband Internet access service providers’ Internet interconnection arrangements, independent of the arguments regarding the reclassification of the service itself (1,500 words);

(G) “The new Internet conduct standard and the clarifications of the transparency rule [requiring more info] adopted in the 2010 Order reviewed in Verizon are unlawful independent of the Commission’s assertion of authority under Title II (2,000 words together);” and

H) Background and other required boilerplate — issues statement, summary of argument (4,750 words).

Some cats really have a lot to say.

— John Eggerton

From Through The Wire: ‘Best New Restaurant’ Gets Into the Weeds Of the Culinary Life

There are a lot of cooking shows on TV, and a lot of restaurant shows. So what will draw viewers to Bravo’s new competition show Best New Restaurant, Through The Wire asked host, judge and executive producer Tom Colicchio, the accomplished restaurateur and Top Chef star.

“I don’t think there’s been a show that’s really given the viewer a good idea of what happens in a restaurant,” famed for Gramercy Tavern, Craft and other fine dining spots, said before a promotional event on Jan. 13 at his Riverpark in New York, which also featured a fun chat between Colicchio and New York magazine food critic Adam Platt (pictured).

Top Chef showed viewers how a chef creates, he said. Top Chef ’s “Restaurant Wars” episodes are “sort of a compressed version of opening night.” Rocco DiSpirito’s The Restaurant was more of a reality show.

“This is really nuts and bolts,” Colicchio said. “You bring 30 people into a restaurant and turn the camera on, you’ll see some stuff that I think people are going to really be interested in.”

Teams from 16 restaurants from across the country vie against each other two at a time. The last one standing gets an editorial feature in Bon Appetit, $100,000 and other goodies. It’s modeled on the U.K’s Ramsay’s Best Restaurant, and Gordon Ramsay also executive produces.

Many people fantasize about owning a restaurant, and think the real work in being a chef is creating the dish, Colicchio said. “You can go and buy The French Laundry Cookbook and you can stay home and perfect those dishes. Good luck putting that into a restaurant kitchen and expediting that food every single night for 200 people a night, or whatever it is, and doing it consistently.”

Viewers see the turmoil in the kitchen and the front of house, and how real diners respond. How does marketing a new show compare with marketing a new restaurant? “They have a bigger budget than a restaurant does!” was Colicchio’s first thought. Good point.

Best New Restaurant premieres Wednesday, Jan. 21, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.

— Kent Gibbons