Through the Wire
By Tom Steinert-Threlkeld, Linda Moss, Linda Haugsted, Todd Spangler and Leslie Ellis -- Multichannel News, 12/17/2006 7:00:00 PM
Items:
Freston, Buffett on Road to Morocco
Wheeling, Dealing Leads To Shooting and Fishing
Offhand O.J. Comment Leads to Online Game
How Disney Almost Got Spooked by an iPod
All They Want for Xmas Are Peace and Tech Toys
Freston, Buffett on Road to Morocco
What’s Tom Freston up to these days?
“Sniffing around,” the former Viacom CEO told The Wire last Tuesday at a memorial service for John Higgins, the one-of-his-kind reporter for Broadcasting & Cable and, before that, Multichannel News.
The event was held in The Lodge at MTV Networks, which Viacom owns and where Freston reached industry-legend status. Unsurprisingly, he wants to use music to change the world, just as he changed the business world, with music, a quarter century ago.
Freston says he recently spent a couple days in the Bahamas, meeting with “Margaritaville” denizen Jimmy Buffett. Turns out the out-of-work executive and laid-back rocker are discussing staging a benefit concert next September in Morocco.
Is the goal to end famine, like George Harrison’s archetypal Madison Square Garden Concert for Bangladesh? No. Freston replied the object is more basic, in a time of anarchy in Iraq and clashes of cultures from Ground Zero to the Middle East to Europe to Asia.
It’s to encourage tolerance, said Freston, who received the Humanitarian Award this past June from the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.
Wheeling, Dealing Leads To Shooting and Fishing
In more cable CEO alumni news, Leo Hindery Jr. has shown his love for sports hobbies goes beyond sports cars.
The former head of Tele-Communications Inc. and AT&T Broadband is getting into niche publishing. His InterMedia Partners is buying 17 hunting and fishing magazines from Primedia for $170 million in cash, bringing in such titles as Guns & Ammo, Fly Fisherman, Game & Fish, Florida Sportsman and In-Fisherman. The sale is expected to close by the end of the first quarter.
Unfortunately, Hindery — also well known for driving Porsches in endurance races such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans — couldn’t be reached for comment last week. But his canned statement sounds a lot like him: “This is a committed enthusiast group with enormous buying power and advertiser appeal, which has historically been underserved and undervalued by mainstream media.”
Offhand O.J. Comment Leads to Online Game
Every so often, you get an idea that’s just bound to be a hit. John Roberts, senior VP of digital media and interactive entertainment for GSN, knew he had one from the minute he uttered the phrase: “They should have thrown the book at him a long time ago.”
It was at a staff meeting, and participants were discussing News Corp.’s decision to withdraw the much-criticized book and TV special on the O.J. Simpson homicide case titled If I Did It.
A week after Roberts’s comment, GSN’s Web site had already debuted the snarky game Throw the Book at O.J. (Hint to gamers: Aim at his noggin for a better score and get more books by hitting the space bar.)
Late last week, the game was logging 1,000 players a minute, its awareness boosted by coverage on ABCnews.com, USA Today and TMZ.com. “I’ve gotten e-mails from three different people telling me to check out the game, not knowing I had anything to do with it,” Roberts says with a laugh.
He likens the game to a political cartoon commenting on current pop culture. It’s surpassed earlier popular games, which spoofed Mel Gibson’s drunken-driving rant and former Rep. Mark Foley’s instant messaging of underaged pages. The Simpson case “has been such a debacle for so long” that people are really drawn to the game’s cathartic effect, Roberts opines.
How Disney Almost Got Spooked by an iPod
Now it can be told: The Walt Disney Co.’s original iTunes deal freaked out a bunch of folks at ABC.
In October 2005, Disney announced a deal with Apple Computer to offer ABC’s top TV shows through the iTunes digital download store, including Lost and Desperate Housewives, less than 24 hours after they aired.
Kevin Mayer, executive VP of corporate strategy in Disney’s business development and technology group, says there were fears the move might backfire in a big way on ABC by diluting TV ratings. During a panel at Cisco Systems’ C-Scape 2006 analyst conference last week, Mayer said “it scared us — we didn’t know what was going to happen. It scared our affiliates. It scared other producers of television programming and other networks.”
But all’s well that does no harm. Mayer says digital distribution has mostly grown the audience for ABC shows. Disney estimates generating $25 million in revenue from movies and TV shows sold over iTunes in the first year. Mayer also says free, ad-supported episodes of Lost at lost.abc.com have proved even more popular than iTunes downloads.
“I think one of the messages is, when you provide consumers with a more convenient way to do something, more people do it,” he concluded.
All They Want for Xmas Are Peace and Tech Toys
What do cable tech experts specify as their perfect holiday gift?
The list ranges from the doubtful, to the unlikely, to the improbable. But give them credit for imagination!
Marwan Fawaz, the chief technology officer at Charter Communications, wants that coveted waiver from set-top rules the Federal Communications Commission is imposing next July. (Doubtful).
Chris Bowick, CTO of Cox, wants “bug-free software, fully integrated and converged among all of my video, voice, data and wireless applications and vendors.” (Unlikely.) He also wants it “on time, and on budget.” (Even more unlikely).
Bowick also wants world peace — “but I’m beginning to believe that’s the same ask.” Ouch.
Pete Smith of International Media Partners (former CTO of Rifkin & Associates) wants “a single device to replace my cell phone, PDA, laptop, set-top box, DVR, home phone, credit cards, identification, razor, toothbrush and keys.” We were with him up until the personal grooming bits.
Here’s an easier one, Santa: Dom Stasi, CTO of TVN Entertainment, wants a string of Christmas lights that stay on, even when one of the lights goes out.
We think the elves licked that problem a while ago.
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