Through the Wire
by Linda Haugsted and Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 4/28/2008 2:00:00 AM
A Buffalo Soldier With a 'Lucky Baby'
VH1's executive vice president and general manager Tom Calderone is immersed this time of year in sales, promoting his network to potential clients as part of that annual dance known as the upfronts.
But this year he also has an unpaid side gig in marketing, and it's not for a Viacom cable network. The rabid football fan has been selected to participate in a TV campaign as part of the fan-based strategy of his favorite team, the Buffalo Bills.
Viewers in the Bills' market area, from Toronto to Erie, Pa., will see a jersey-clad Calderone, relating his favorite game day memory as part of the “My Bills, My Story” campaign.
Calderone gets the screen time, but according to his tale, the star of the story is his then 9-month-old son, James, aka “Lucky Baby.” The cable executive and his wife took the tot, in baby-sized Bills livery, natch, to his first game in 2003. It was a lovely, 70-degree day in the stadium, but it took a turn for the memory books in the fourth quarter, when a cameraman zoomed in on the baby and put his image on the stadium Jumbotron.
As Calderone tells it, 70,000 fans cheered for the cute junior fan, and shortly after his fandom “debut,” the home team started stacking up impressive plays, eventually sending the game into overtime.
During the extra minutes, the cameraman came back again and asked the Calderones to lift up their child for another shot. Shortly after James appeared on the screens again, the Bills scored to win the game.
James had an instant fan club. Those sitting around the trio started to chant “Luck-ee Bay-bee! Luck-ee Bay-be!” and the chant followed the happy family all the way to their car.
The spots began airing April 26, timed to the National Football League draft.
James may be the “Lucky Baby,” but Dad's getting a little glory of his own. Calderone attended Buffalo State College (which explains why a Long Island native is a fan of the upstate team) and he will return there May 10 to receive an honorary doctorate of human letters from his alma mater.
Too bad it's too early in the year for a home game.
Comcast, AT&T Box in Chicago
The cable-telco legal melee of the week: Comcast claims AT&T's U-verse services have caused “significant damage” to its coaxial cable network in the Chicago area — while the telephone company is seeking to block the cabler's ads that poke fun at the large outdoor boxes used to deliver U-verse TV.
AT&T fired the first legal salvo, a false-advertising suit on March 21 against Comcast in federal court in Chicago. The telco asserted that a Comcast ad campaign falsely states AT&T will install “giant utility boxes” on customers' properties. AT&T says the boxes — called video-ready access devices (VRADs) — only occasionally are placed on private property, with the consent of the owner.
“Purchasing AT&T television service offerings does not result in a VRAD being placed in a customer's yard,” AT&T said.
Comcast struck back. A countersuit on April 20 claimed shoddy AT&T installs resulted in damaging interference with Comcast's cable infrastructure and left hundreds of customers without phone, Internet and TV service.
Comcast complained that improper AT&T U-verse installations caused network disruptions at least 40 times since February. The problems occur, Comcast said, when customers have both U-verse and Comcast services. In certain cases, feedback from U-verse equipment has caused outages of entire Comcast nodes, which have affected more than 17,000 Chicago-area subscribers.
“AT&T has been aware of this problem for more than a year and yet they have failed to fix the issue,” Comcast director of corporate communications Charlie Douglas said in a statement.
Responded AT&T spokeswoman Jenny Parker, “We think Comcast's suit lacks merit and will vigorously fight it as the case continues.”
Sadly, though, the 5-foot-3-inch-tall, 35-cubic-feet VRADs probably are too big to appear in court.
Golden Globes Pray for Peace
They had to be crossing their fingers as they issued this release: the board of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, backers of the Golden Globe Awards, has issued its schedule for next year's award telecast.
You'll recall this year the normal convivial gala at the Beverly Hilton Hotel was reduced to a star-free, perfunctory press conference to announce the winners. The ceremony was the victim of the strike by the Writers Guild of America when stars vowed not to cross the picket line.
Even though the actors now are in uncompleted contract talks, the organization has signaled its intent to hold a gala next year, on Jan. 11. The telecast will be carried by NBC.
TV networks seeking to curry favor with the HFPA membership should plan on wrapping up the schmoozing and press conferences by Oct. 31, the organization says, with ballot mailings to take place by Nov. 26. Nominations should be announced on Dec. 11.
Fingers crossed!
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