Through the Wire

Psych stars James Roday and Dulé Hill took on what could be a prickly assignment last week: serve as the comedic masters of ceremonies for a charity dinner and take jabs at their boss, Bonnie Hammer.

Some of their material, as Hammer was honored by the Anti-Defamation League in Los Angeles, worked. They cracked that Hammer’s biographic reel had been made in Vancouver “to save a little money” and called Hammer “the original Salt from Salt n’ Pepa.”

Other lines were true groaners, like their assertion that they were last-minute replacements for the original emcees, Michael Richards and Isaiah Washington. Good thing their USA series provides them with solid day jobs.

But they set the tone for the night: a light-hearted tribute to Hammer, who was honored for championing social campaigns such as “Characters United” and “Erase the Hate.” She gave a gracious shout-out to former USA honcho Kay Koplovitz for giving her the chance to launch “Erase the Hate” 10 years ago.

Hammer, in turn, was praised by Universal Studios president and chief operating officer Ron Meyer, who attended the June 3 dinner in spite of the challenges he faced last week as his facility was mopped up after a multimillion-dollar fire.

One of the challenges to an event like this: having the honoree sit through his or her bio tape, or as Hammer called it “the life, the times and the hair of Bonnie Hammer.” (She had a pretty poufy curly ’do during her stint in the original production crew of This Old House, when she worked with Bob Vila.)

But she soldiered on, leaving the group with a solid message: People aren’t born hating others, they are taught.

A new book that examines the role of lobbyists in Washington, D.C., includes a short chapter on National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Kyle McSlarrow and the failed effort to pass a major telecommunications bill in the waning moments of Republican control on Capitol Hill in 2006.

The book draws the strange conclusion that the legislation’s demise was a setback for the NCTA, without mentioning that cable had been a reluctant participant from the outset and benefited when the bill died over divisive net neutrality politics.

Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles In Backroom Power by veteran journalists John Harwood of CNBC and Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal describes the legislative fight by portraying McSlarrow as a traditional Republican establishment figure trying to cope with an agile new foe on the left: MoveOn.org and the Save the Internet coalition, with their legions of “netroots” political activists ready to flood Congress with millions of e-mail messages.

At its core, the legislation was about speeding the entry of AT&T and Verizon Communications into cable markets by removing or minimizing local governmental entry barriers. NCTA — which couldn’t oppose the bill without damaging relations with top GOP lawmakers — tried its best to water down the most favorable provisions to the phone giants.

The net neutrality debate erupted when the House and Senate bills excluded explicit nondiscrimination language aimed at high-speed Internet access providers.

Although the House passed a cable franchise reform bill, the Senate never did, largely because MoveOn and Save the Internet pressured enough Democrats to block the bill from reaching the Senate floor.

The caption beside McSlarrow’s picture in the book reads: “On the issue of regulating the Internet, [McSlarrow] met his match in the power of the liberal 'netroots.’ ”

Say what? That’s a bizarre conclusion because it’s ludicrous to call NCTA anything but a winner. After all, AT&T and Verizon didn’t get their cable franchise reforms and Save The Internet didn’t get its net-neutrality mandates.

It’s not just ESPN fearing for its financial life if Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin tries to put into law his so-called 75-cent solution for the cable programming market.

Just as concerned are Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, college sports organization the NCAA and auto racing circuit NASCAR.

Those groups fired off a strong letter to Martin on May 28 warning of the dire consequences of a policy that could expel networks from expanded basic if they seek 75 cents or more per month, per subscriber as their license fee.

After the letter became public, cable attorneys were quick to point out that the National Football League — which is seeking Martin’s help in its fight with Comcast — was conspicuously absent.

NFL spokesman Dan Masonson provide the reason for the league’s absence.

“The NFL didn’t join because there’s no formal proposal to comment on, and our TV programming is more broadcast network based and much less cable-focused than those of the other leagues,” Masonson said.