Coda

A somewhat odd child beat out a very odd adult last week, in setting ratings records.

On Sunday night, Feb. 17, Showtime’s quirky, charming-to-some serial murderer Dexter was watched by 8.2 million viewers. That was six times the number that watched the Dec. 16 finale of Dexter’s second season, on Showtime.

Of course, Feb. 17 was the night that the character from the premium subscription TV service made its debut on CBS, the free broadcast network. Showtime only reaches 15.5 million households, while CBS reaches 103 million TV households.

This also was the first time in two decades a character had crossed over from a premium network.

But Dexter got beat by a kid the next day. On a cable network, not a broadcast one.

You might say the previous evening’s showing went “Poof.” That was the name of the boy born to a pair of fairies in Nickelodeon’s animated special, Fairly OddBaby, on Presidents Day.

That special, a spinoff of Nickelodeon’s popular Fairly OddParents show, finished as the top entertainment program for the year from either broadcast or cable among kids 2 to 11 (5.3 million), 6 to 11 (4.2 million), and tweens 9 to 14 (3.2 million), according to Nick.

All told, the special averaged 8.8 million viewers, according to Nick. Nickelodeon is seen in 96 million households.

— Tom Steinert-Threlkeld

New York — Who says capital has gotten scarce?

New York-based telecommunications investment banker Waller Capital said Friday that it has completed seven cable deals worth $600 million in the past six months.

Among those transactions are Broadstripe’s estimated $125 million purchase of James Cable and the $173 million sale of Everest Communications to SureWest Communications. In January, Waller Capital was named as strategic adviser to Grande Communications, a Texas-based overbuilder with about 145,000 residential and business subscribers.

Waller also is increasing its focus on telecommunications deals.

— Mike Farrell

A second broadcaster has exceeded its estimates for revenue pulled in from retransmission consent agreements.

Hearst-Argyle Television reported retransmission-consent revenue of $5.5 million in the fourth quarter, a 20% increase over the prior year and pushing retrans revenue for the entire year to $21.6 million, well above previous estimates.

Hearst-Argyle, which owns 26 television stations and manages three other in several markets across the country, had previously estimated that retrans revenue would be in the $18 million to $20 million range.

Even at that estimate, cash for retransmission consent would have been as much as 12% above the 2006 mark of $17.9 million.

Hearst-Argyle is the second broadcasting group to surpass its previous retrans estimates for the year. Sinclair Broadcasting Group reported on Feb. 6 that it pulled $59 million in revenue from cable, satellite and telco TV operators for retransmission rights, a 23% increase over previous estimates.

— Mike Farrell

New York — Multichannel News is expanding its Multichannel.com Web team, to boost its ability to deliver news around the clock and in audio and video.

Joining Multichannel.com on the West Coast is Larry Barrett, who will be associate online news editor. He comes from Internews.com and is based in San Jose, Calif., and will specifically be in charge of extending Multichannel’s live coverage of industry events through the evening.

He has worked in online news, in various capacities, for nearly 12 years.

Also joining the Web team as online multimedia editor is R. Thomas Umstead. In addition to his longstanding duties as programming editor of MCN, Tom will be dedicated to finding, developing, recording and editing Multichannel.com reports and interviews, in photo, audio and video formats. He has most recently, for instance, compared the presentation of scenes from Dexter about life of a fictional serial murderer from the Showtime episode versus what appeared in the same scene on CBS.

Also assisting will be deputy managing editor Eric Smith in New York, who will launch each daily edition of Multichannel Newswire. The bulk of this daily digest of industry news will be compiled by Barrett, working on the West Coast each evening.

The team is headed by online news editor Mike Reynolds, who is based in New York. Reynolds will coordinate contributions during each news day and over each weekend from Barrett, Umstead and all members of the Multichannel edit team.