Through the Wire

Two days after news broke that its anchor was having an affair with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Telemundo placed Mirthala Salinas on a paid leave last Thursday.

The network and its Los Angeles station, KVEA-TV — both owned by NBC Universal — plan to conduct an internal review of the affair.

Salinas, 35, is a former political reporter that covered Villaraigosa as part of her beat. She had become anchor by the time Villaraigosa announced June 8 that he was leaving his wife of 20 years. Salinas now is taking heat for reporting the news on air but not disclosing that she was the apparent cause of the split.

Though Salinas said she informed her bosses about the affair last year, the Los Angeles Times reported that the relationship is at least 18 months old and that Salinas was dating the mayor while reporting from city hall.

Lifetime’s new CEO Andrea Wong and HBO’s new co-president Richard Plepler will face the nation’s toughest TV writers this week at the summer Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills. It’s the first time Wong and Plepler will talk to TV writers, en masse, since assuming their new posts.

Wong is slated to host Lifetime’s Thursday morning breakfast, the event that kicks off cable’s four-day portion of the TCA tour. Later that afternoon, Plepler will handle HBO’s executive session, a role once played by ousted CEO Chris Albrecht.

HBO’s session includes a panel on its steamy new series Tell Me You Love Me, which ultra-graphically depicts the sex lives of three troubled couples all seeing the same therapist. Sex and The City looks like a Disney Channel show, in comparison.

Showtime is aiming to make a big impression with the TV scribes against a Sopranos-less HBO during its Saturday session. Showtime Networks CEO Matt Blank and president of entertainment Richard Greenblatt will tout the premium network’s slate, which includes Californication, a comedy starring David Duchovy also expected to push the envelope, with its sexual content.

Cable’s portion of the TCA tour ends Sunday.

Showtime will lend its pro boxing brand to a new video game.

Destination Software will introduce the Showtime Championship Boxing video game this fall on Nintendo’s DS and Wii video game consoles, according to Ken Hershman, senior vice president and general manager of Showtime Sports.

The game will feature will feature 14 boxers who duke it out in four different fight locations — Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Boxers can block, dodge, punch, and throw combos in three different modes. With the Wii platform, video couch potatoes can get a good workout using the platform’s wireless hand-held controllers to mimic their fighter’s punches.

Still unclear is whether video gamers can take their shots at Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield or other fighters who’ve appeared frequently on Showtime Championship Boxing shows over the past two decades.

At least one local TV station owner is breaking ranks with the National Association of Broadcasters over the retransmission of local TV signals over the Internet.

In a July 2 filing, Capitol Broadcasting told the U.S. Copyright Office that the compulsory license that cable operators rely on today to deliver local signals to TV sets can also be used to transmit the same signals over the Internet, provided the signals don’t leak beyond their local markets. Compulsory licensing enables operators to carry local stations without needing the consent of entities that hold the copyright to specific shows, programs, and events.

“The Internet simply provides another means of access to viewers, live and in real time, to national and local entertainment, news, whether, public safety, and emergency information broadcast over the air by local TV stations,” Raleigh, N.C.-based Capitol Broadcasting cheerfully notes in the filing.

In late 1999, the NAB and the Motion Picture Association of America, concerned about uncompensated access to their content over the Internet, led a fight against America Online, which wanted a compulsory license.

The Copyright Office is preparing a report for Congress on the issue. Capitol Broadcasting would like the report to urge Congress to create a compulsory license for Internet retransmission if current law isn’t sufficient. Capitol said it has the technology — something called geocoding, with credit card validation — to ensure the signals stay local. Just a thought on security: It did take someone just four days to hack the Apple iPhone.

There’s no “Achy Breaky Heart” for Billy Ray Cyrus’s kid these days.

Better known to many as Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus sat atop the Billboard chart last week and near the apex of the cable Nielsens in June.

Last week, Disney Records and Hollywood Records’ Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus scanned more than 325,000 units in its release week June 24-July 1. The dual-disc debuted at the top the Billboard Top 200 chart, and also finished atop its Children’s and Soundtrack charts. The set also ranked No. 1 on the iTunes Music Store.

Last month, the June 24 episode of the Hannah Montana posted a 5.2 household rating, attracting 7.38 million viewers, the third highest-total for any basic cable show last month.

It’s in tune with Miley’s character. On the show, the younger Cyrus plays 14-year-old Miley Stewart, a normal teenager except for the fact that she leads a double life as a pop superstar. That fact is unknown to all except her closest friend and father Robby Ray, played by country singer Billy Ray Cyrus.