Meredith Baker: FCC’s Stand-Up Commissioner

by John Eggerton, Kent Gibbons and R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 10/11/2010 12:01:00 AM

We wouldn’t suggest that Federal Communications Commission member Meredith Attwell Baker give up her day job, but she did get some pretty big laughs with her tweaking of National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Kyle McSlarrow and even super-mogul Rupert Murdoch at last Wednesday’s Media Institute dinner in Washington.

Baker, a Republican, said the night was her kind of a “fair and balanced event: We are honoring a big Republican politician and a big Republican donor.”

Turning to Murdoch, the chairman of Fox and New York Post parent News Corp., she said: “When James Madison sat down to draft the First Amendment, I’m sure he had to sit there and think: One day, a publisher may run with the headline: ‘Kiss Your Asteroid Goodbye,’ and a cartoonist would teach us that, if babies and dogs could actually talk, what they’d say might be really filthy. Well, James Madison, Rupert’s New York Post and Family Guy answered those dreams.

“As for Kyle, the former head of the Quayle presidential campaign,” she said, “I saw him double checking that tonight’s menu spelled ‘potato’ correctly. Old habits really do die hard.”

McSlarrow, in accepting the institute’s Freedom of Speech Award, exercised his right not to return the zinger, saying he would save it for another time. He did say “that was really uncalled for.” Th en added: “Those of you who actually watched the Quayle [vice presidential] debate know that was a reference.”

The Wire, of course, caught McSlarrow’s allusion. It was how Quayle responded to opponent Lloyd Bentsen’s famous observation that Quayle was no Jack Kennedy.

Baker also had some actual high praise for the potent pair. She praised Murdoch, who got the American Horizon Award, for “powerful and timely leadership in resisting a government bailout of journalism.”

As for McSlarrow, she made it clear she thought that Quayle’s loss was cable’s gain. “Time has shown that NCTA, was very, very right, and the cable industry has been extremely lucky to have a consistent champion, a steady leader and a true visionary to ensure a solid regulatory foundation for the future of cable and consumers.”

Former NCTA president Decker Anstrom, who co-chaired the search committee that selected McSlarrow six years ago, cited McSlarrow’s early work at NCTA dealing with a content inquiry. He emphasized cable’s First Amendment rights and the use of parental controls rather than in dealing with a content inquiry.

“In that first test, he displayed the skills to unite the NCTA board around First Amendment and deregulatory principles” and to resist pressure for “sweeping new cable programming regs.”

Those abilities, he said, are “unique and critical.”

Ovation, TWC, 92Y Add Celeb Writers To Local VOD Mix

Time Warner Cable’s New York City subscribers will soon see an upgrade to their local video-on-demand content, via a partnership with the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan and the Ovation network.

TWC’s New York system and Ovation are backing the Y’s Poetry Center Schools Project, which supports public highschool students learning to turn their life experiences into poetry, essays and fiction. It led off, fittingly, with singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, who lives in the city and recently published a memoir, Composed. She met with students involved in the project Thursday night (Oct. 7), followed by a conversation with novelist A.M. Homes in the Y’s lecture hall. All of it was taped for later use on Ovation’s website and on TWC’s local video-on-demand service, channel 1111.

The Wire recommends Cash’s thoughtful comments about the writing process, about Twitter as a form of café society and the three songs she performed, including Seven Year Ache. She also said her dad, Johnny Cash, didn’t own a black hat.

Jonathan Franzen, Salman Rushdie and Maxine Hong Kingston are scheduled to participate later in the series. No word on whether they too will sing.

History Magazine Tosses Out Kernels Of Candy Corn Fact

Candy corn, the quintessential Halloween treat, was invented by Philadelphia candy maker George Renninger in the 1880s. He tested the look by tossing “kernels” to chickens to see if they’d be fooled.

That candy corn lore comes from the September/ October issue of History: The History Channel Magazine.

Other facts: the eight-step manufacturing process was so labor intensive, candy corn was only made a few months a year. It was a popular fall harvest treat, becoming a Halloween staple when trick-or-treating took off after World War II.

About 9 billion pieces are made each year. Stacked end to end, they’d circle the moon four times.

Thought you’d want to know.