Through the Wire
by Ted Hearn, Linda Haugsted and R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 11/23/2008 7:00:00 PM
Add Standup Comic to Martin’s Career Menu
About 1,000 communications lawyers and lobbyists crowed a Washington, D.C., hotel ballroom last Tuesday to sample the comedic skills of FCC chairman Kevin Martin, an annual ritual hosted by the Federal Communications Bar Association to raise money for scholarships and other charitable activities.
For the most part, Martin delivered, poking fun at opponents with barbed one-liners delivered with the aid of graphics and photos displayed on giant screens on the walls. A recurring gag, for example, was a photo of NASCAR driver David Gilliland’s wrecked Ford Fusion, the crash-prone vehicle that promoted the digital-TV transition in a $350,000 expenditure authorized by Martin.
Martin also got a laugh by saying, “I’ve often told everyone I learned my people skills” from Reed Hundt, a former FCC chairman not known for his personal warmth.
Martin, of course, took an obligatory shot at Comcast by recalling how the cable firm’s employees filled a Harvard Law School auditorium in February. That stunt barred consumer advocates from booing Comcast executive vice president David Cohen as he testified at the FCC’s hearing on Comcast’s broadband network-management practices.
After noting that the FCBA dinner wasn’t as hot a ticket as in years past, Martin remarked: “Unlike in other years, Comcast can’t even hire seat warmers not to laugh at my jokes.”
Martin has been silent on his next career move. People have guessed he might go into politics in his native North Carolina or try to get a job at Google or some other Silicon Valley entity his policies ended up pleasing.
Martin, however, had other suggestions, such as:
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“I could become a wardrobe consultant to Janet Jackson.”
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“I could become an FCC-sponsored NASCAR driver.”
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“I could play Harry Potter in a Broadway musical.”
As for the Harry Potter lookalike punch line, Washington superlobbyist and former National Association of Broadcasters president Eddie Fritts, Martin’s warm-up act, set the stage earlier.
“When Kevin Martin first came to the FCC, people used to joke about how young he looked,” Fritts deadpanned. “But you can tell the stress is really getting to him and he is showing his age. This week he has had to shave twice.”
Martin tried to dispel the too-young-to-hold-power talk by pulling out a fifth of Jack Daniels and knocking back a shot.
TWC Lends Hand In Fire-Hit Areas
Anyone who saw (or smelled) the acrid black smoke plume rising over Southern California the week of Nov. 17 and extending through the weekend would find it hard to believe that there wasn’t significant damage to the plant of the dominant operator, Time Warner Cable.
After all, fire officials said 41,549 acres were burned in populated areas in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties. The toll, as of Nov. 21, was 479 homes destroyed and 138 damaged in Los Angeles County by the Sayre fire; and 190 homes destroyed and 123 damaged by the Freeway Complex fire. As of that date, the fires were declared contained, but still not snuffed.
Still, company officials said damage to the cable plant was minimal, in spite of the infernos pushed along by high winds.
Some outages were caused by a mandatory rolling power blackout by the Los Angeles city utility. Other service interruptions were repaired as the conflagration progressed, although that work was sometimes delayed because roads were closed by order of fire services.
The company focused on providing information. Cable drops to evacuation centers kept fire victims abreast of containment efforts and evacuation orders. And cabler-staffed tables at the Red Cross centers allowed victims to cancel billing to burned locations and forward their phone calls to new locations in TWC’s territory.
TV One’s Evans: Obama Has Game
BET CEO Debra Lee wasn’t the only cable executive to hold court with President-elect Barack Obama on Election Day.
The Wire noted last week that Lee exchanged pleasantries with Obama in Grant Park in Chicago after his historic win.
Well, TV One Chicago director of ad sales Walter Evans shot hoops with the former Illinois senator on the afternoon of Nov. 4.
Lee plays regularly in a league with the president elect’s friend and campaign treasurer, Marty Nesbitt, and was invited to play with Obama prior to the election. As The Los Angeles Times recently observed, Obama has a ritual that began during January’s Iowa caucuses of playing pickup basketball games on the day of a big election event, to relieve stress.
Evans reports the country’s 44th president “is a pretty good player” with “a mean crossover.”
In this photo, Obama is kneeling in the center of the front row; Evans is in the back row with a bright blue shirt and shaved head, slightly left of Obama; and Nesbitt is in the front row, two people right of Obama.
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