Through the Wire

The Turner Broadcasting System Inc. entourage headed to the Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia this month for the summer version of Ted Turner's international competition will include several bean counters from corporate parent AOL Time Warner Inc.

Several AOL Time Warner executives will make the trip Down Under with an eye on whether the company should continue with the quadrennial money-loser. Industry observers estimate that the each Summer Goodwill Games outing has lost millions.

The company has yet to announce a site for the next summer installment, and sources close to the situation said none will come until AOL Time Warner determines whether to keep the franchise going beyond 2001.

A Goodwill Games spokesman confirmed the presence of corporate officials at the games, but denied any pending announcements on future sites.

MTV: Music Television's 20th-anniversary show, Live and Almost Legal, went on without pop star Mariah Carey, who was touted as one of the major attractions for the multi-artist concert performance and celebration.

Carey's performance was slated to end the two-hour extravaganza, but the singer/producer/actor/writer backed out days before the show, after she was admitted to a New York hospital for exhaustion. Carey's sudden withdrawal sent MTV show producers scrambling to find a replacement for the fallen star, but an MTV spokeswoman said that such last-minute crisis are not out of the ordinary.

"The producers are so used to last-minute shifts in the schedule and we already had a incredibly strong lineup of performers," said the spokeswoman.

Taking Carey's place were the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who closed the show, which was attended by such Viacom Inc. dignitaries as Sumner Redstone, Tom Freston and Mel Karmazin.

While Comcast Corp. hasn't officially publicized its future plans for system video-on-demand rollouts, it certainly is flagging the product in one of its biggest New Jersey systems.

Comcast of Northern New Jersey is running a 30-second "coming soon" teaser spot touting the benefits of VOD. The commercial, which has been running for several weeks, also makes no bones about targeting VOD's main competitors.

Sources said the finale of the spot's script suggests that everyone will be exited about the coming of VOD except … then cuts to a shot of a local video-store operator.

Comcast officials would not confirm exactly when VOD will actually launch in the system, but The Wire can bet that local video-store owners will be waiting anxiously for more information on Comcast's VOD plans.

Lifetime Television may have more viewers, but WE: Women's Entertainment is seemingly getting more attention from Hollywood.

O.K., maybe just from talk show host Jay Leno.

Twice last month, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno ran a spoof of WE's unabashed marketing campaign aimed at female viewers. First, Leno offered a hilarious take-off on WE's yellow-background, introspective and testimonial commercial featuring several well-known women such as Vanessa Williams, Faye Dunaway and Cindy Crawford. Leno's version was for the ME: It's all about ME channel, in which the host and a group of stereotypical males discuss — in often crude ways — why the fictitious ME channel is necessary.

In another nod to WE, Leno proposed a new show for the ME channel that's the antithesis of WE's more relaxed, female-oriented programming. The series Loud Noises would feature an endless array of explosions, car crashes and bombings with "no stars, no dialogue and no relationships."

WE officials did not return calls by press time seeking comment on Leno's levity. But The Wire is sure that operators would be able to find some room in the digital cable package for such a channel.

Cable executives are pondering where USA Network and Sci-Fi Channel founder Kay Koplovitz will turn up now that she's resigned as CEO of Working Woman Network.

In a press statement, Koplovitz said she's leaving Working Woman, which operated female-targeted magazines as Working Woman and Working Mother , as well as the Web site WorkingWoman.com, to "contribute to the next level of television communications." A spokeswoman would not reveal further details.

Sources in the know, however, believe Koplovitz may lean toward taking a more entrepreneurial road back into the industry, rather than joining a network owned by a media conglomerate.

Koplovitz will remain chairwoman of television programmer Broadway Television Network, which distributes Broadway musicals via PPV.