Through the Wire

The guy on stilts in the tree suit was a tip-off — if the green carpet wasn’t enough — that last Wednesday’s event at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles was a celebration of Planet Green, the Discovery Communications outlet that on June 4 will replace Discovery Home in 50 million U.S. TV homes.

The event tied in with a finale concert for Green Planet original series Battleground Earth. Background: In the show, rocker Tommy Lee competes with rapper Ludacris in challenges staged around the country designed to raise ecological awareness. In the Oakland, Calif., area they raced to see who could fill a garbage truck first. Strangest image: Ludacris in cowboy boots learning first hand about bovine-generated waste.

The finale concert will air on the channel in August.

On hand were stars from Discovery’s stable, including Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) and Curtis Stone (Take Home Chef). Hosts of upcoming Planet Green shows, including Adrian Grenier, Tom Green and Annabelle Gurwitch, also were there. Performers included Blue Man Group and Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider.

The disposable cups in use were made of corn products and 100% compostable, of course, and a petroleum-free vehicle by a key sponsor, General Motors’ Chevrolet, was displayed out front.

Adorning the stage were plants indigenous to Griffith Park, where the theater is located. They were donated to help replant the park, which was ravaged by a wildfire last year.

Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin and FCC member Michael Copps visited Wilmington, N.C., last Tuesday to speak at a town hall event on that city’s early transition to all-digital broadcasting on Sept. 8, about 160 days before the rest of the country.

Media outlets not based in Wilmington didn’t learn of the Martin-Copps visit until after the event was over, when Copps posted his prepared comments on the FCC’s Web page. If you want to know what Martin said, you had to be there. The FCC didn’t provide a copy of his remarks and didn’t post any audio or video to its Web site.

Generating news stories about the DTV transition is considered vital to the cause of ensuring that as many consumers as possible are adequately prepared for the cutoff of analog TV signals on Feb. 17, 2009.

When the FCC agreed to let Wilmington transition early, it made national news — in part because by going early, Wilmington could teach the rest of the country some important lessons on how well consumers adjusted to the change.

So why did Martin and Copps — making their first joint appearance in Wilmington since its selection in early May — decide to make a stealth visit that ruled out anything but local coverage?

“In general, this was a local event, and it was held at the request of the city of Wilmington,” a Martin spokesman said.

Said a Copps staffer: “Commissioner Copps typically does not publicize his attendance at Commission events. He does release the text of his remarks, as he did here.”

Maybe Martin and Copps will get a chance to explain their under-the-radar DTV transition public relations strategy in the likely event both are called to appear before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet on June 10 to discuss the Wilmington trial.

Time Warner chairman Richard Parsons received a corporate leadership award from Sesame Workshop in New York City (also last Wednesday) at its annual benefit. Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting co-produces Galli Galli Sim Sim, the Indian version of Sesame Street that launched in 2006 and airs on the local Cartoon Network. CNN’s Anderson Cooper hosted the event.

Leave it to Parsons to dig up a new fact about Cooper. “I found out something. We’ve been colleagues a long time and done a lot of things together, but I never knew that he and I shared the following thing in common: Grover was our favorite Sesame Street character. I had a particular partiality to Super Grover, but that’s sort of an inside joke.”