As Midwest Sports Channel's general manager, Kevin Cattoor had a working relationship with the Minnesota Twins baseball team-mainly because the regional sports network televised the team's games. Clearly, the Twins were enamored with Cattoor: last week the former cable executive was named COO of the franchise.
Cattoor, who left MSC after CBS Cable sold the network to Fox Sports, will be responsible for the team's broadcasting rights. For Fox's sake, let's hope Cattoor left on good terms.
Brace yourselves, people! With the Western Show's return to Anaheim, Calif., late this year, the city showcased its new look in a special eight-page advertising supplement, "The Anaheim Resort," in the Jan. 5 USA Today. About half its content was devoted to Disneyland and its latest spin-off theme park, Disney's California Adventure (due to open Feb. 8). Better pick out a comfy pair of shoes. The supplement reports that the convention center-renovated at a cost of $180 million-increased its total space by 40 percent, to 1.6 million gross square feet across five exhibit halls, including 815,000 square feet of exhibit space.
The hottest ticket in D.C. last week was for the National Geographic Channel launch gala at the Warner Theater, hosted by James Bond, er, Pierce Brosnan. The invitations said invitees could bring guests, and a dateless Wire correspondent spotted at least four fellow hacks who took up NGC on its offer to impress guests at the black-tie affair. It was another story for National Geographic magazine photographers-even though the pub only employs five full-time shooters who are sent everywhere from Antarctica to Iraq for the company.
"They told me I could attend, but that my wife couldn't," one photographer groused, adding that the company kept pressing employees to see if they would use even their own tickets. That same shutterbug had some words for Ford Motor Co., after a senior Ford exec presented National Geographic with a check for $400,000 for its conservation efforts during a commercial break. "$400,000. That's not a lot of money. That wouldn't have even paid for our Marco Polo trip,"
said the photographer, who recently completed a two-year jaunt tracing the explorer's path.
What would you think if you saw the phrase: "Acquiring person: Brian L. Roberts; Acquired Entity: Highland Holdings?" A fair number of investors thought-at least for a while last month-that it meant Comcast Corp. president Roberts was making a run at Highland, a privately held company controlled by Adelphia Communications Corp.'s ruling Rigas family.
Those same investors apparently opined that if Roberts was buying Highland, which owns a huge amount of Adelphia's super-voting Class B stock, then he might also be buying Adelphia. They were wrong. That brief phrase was part of a Federal Trade Commission filing made by Comcast on Dec. 20 as part of its system swap with Adelphia, which closed on Jan. 4. Adelphia's stock shot up 23 percent, from $41.88 on Dec. 20 to $51.63 on Dec. 29. The stock had already been on the rise, from $30.44 on Dec. 5, amid rumors Adelphia was close to a major deal, which turned out to be its plans to hold back expansion of the Adelphia Business Solutions business telephony unit and a commitment to trim its debt. Comcast had to file terms of the swap with the FTC. Highland owned some of the systems, so Comcast had to make a separate filing on Highland. The filing was in Roberts's name because he is Comcast's largest shareholder. Hope that's cleared up.
