Kent Gibbons's blog

He's Not a Cop, Or An Actor, Though His Name Is Seamus

By: Aug 18 2008 - 11:40am

I was almost out of the room when I thought I spotted Michael Chiklis, and ambled over to chat.

It wasn’t too surprising to see the star of The Shield at last Thursday night’s event, a reception thrown by Fox Cable Networks for local advertisers in the New York City area. Actors, producers and writers of FX’s Damages and Rescue Me were there, and The Shield, FX’s hit cop drama, returns Sept. 2 for a seventh and last season. So of course that was “Vic Mackey” himself, puffing on a stogey at the outdoor rooftop bar in New York’s Hotel Gansevoort.

Being a fan of the show, and remembering how nice he was when he came to our show-daily newsroom at the National Show in New Orleans in 2002, I went over and, after asking if he was Chiklis, asked how he was doing, thanked him for coming by the newsroom that time – and then realized he was putting me on.

He’s not Chiklis. His name is Seamus Warakomski and he’s the owner and sales manager at Tri-City Appliance Heating & Cooling in Milford, Conn. He buys ads on cable networks, including FX, via Comcast Spotlight, and was there with his wife, Phyllis, far right in the enclosed photo; Comcast Spotlight’s Amber Dodge and NCC executive Joe Smyth (far left), among others. Joe Smyth, Seamus Warakomski, Amber Dodge, Phyllis Warakomski

The next day (Friday), he told me 14 people came up to him thinking he was Chiklis, which made me feel better, especially after some FX people told me he was much less than a “dead ringer” which was my description. Taller than Chiklis, and weighs less. Sounds enough like him to pass for at least a few seconds, though, if I’m an accurate judge.

“Some of the times they were doing the Rock Man pose to me and I didn’t know what they were doing,” Warakomski said. Rock Man as in The Thing, whom Chiklis has played in two Fantastic Four movies.

He had snaps taken with Rescue Me and Damages stars. He said he had hoped to meet Denis Leary, who wasn’t there; the rumor (not from Seamus) was Leary isn’t welcome at the hotel after some shenanigans there after a cast party in 2005 that got written up in the New York Post (I can’t find a suitable link).

One other absent star was on his mind, too.Michael Chiklis as Vic Mackey 

“I was really hoping that Chiklis would be there,” Warakomski said. “I could finally get a picture [with him].”

Specter Cast On Senator's Comcast Ties

By: Feb 6 2008 - 8:15am

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.) has taken heat for carrying Comcast’s water in the current dispute the senator is raging against the National Football League.

But as Woodward told Bernstein in the All The President’s Men movie, if you’re going to hype it, hype it with the facts. This is a message to Chris Russo of WFAN radio in New York (simulcast on YES Network) after his diatribe on the topic Tuesday.

Russo told his radio partner Mike Francesa he can’t take Specter seriously when the senator talks about investigating why the NFL destroyed videotapes that were collected from the New England Patriots after the first game of the 2007 regular season. The Patriots were found to have videotaped New York Jets defensive coaches on the sidelines as the coaches sent in signals about plays the Jets were running. That’s a violation of league rules, and the Patriots and Coach Bill Bellichik were fined and the team lost a first-round draft selection.

Specter went on TV shows Sunday morning, the day of the Super Bowl (which the Patriots lost to the New York Giants, in case you hadn’t heard), to say he wanted to meet with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about the “suspicious circumstances” surrounding the destruction of the tapes, according to The New York Times. Goodell has said he ordered tapes obtained from the Patriots destroyed so the information on them wouldn’t leak out and possibly harm other teams.

Well, Russo went off on Specter, saying the senator “has got a Comcast label on him” and labeling him a “phony.” Fine. Specter has supported Comcast in its dealings with the NFL before this, and the Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican member has previously raised the possibility of removing the anti-trust exemption that enables the league to collectively negotiate TV contracts.

But Russo at least three times made an accusation that doesn’t check out. Specter’s not on Comcast’s board of directors. So Russo can’t accurately say of Specter: “He’s a hypocrite, because the only reason he’s involved in it to begin with is he’s on the board of directors of Comcast. … He’s mad because Comcast doesn’t have a deal with the NFL Network.”

Comcast is a big contributor to Specter, though. In 2007, the company was his second-biggest contributor, giving $101,750, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The top contributor, Blank Rome LLP ($258,550 to Specter in 2007), has been identified as a law firm that has lobbied for Comcast, pocketing $120,000 in lobbying fees from the cable firm in 2007, again according to CPR’s Opensecrets.org Web site.

So Specter is fairly identified as in the Comcast camp.

Just not on its board.

***
Update, Update: On Feb. 7, Specter appeared as a call-in guest on the "Mike & The Mad Dog" radio program, interviewed by Francesa; Russo was off. And the senator said he’s been interested in the NFL and antitrust exemptions since way before cable companies got so powerful. I don’t believe he mentioned Comcast by name.

You can hear the interview here. 











Cable Cool at CES

By: Jan 16 2007 - 9:24am

Cable operators kept their usual low profile at the International Consumer Electronics Show this year, and that's probably a good thing.

Satellite TV's two CEO stars, DirecTV's Chase Carey and Dish Network's Charlie Ergen, talked up HD channels, TV downloads and portable-TV players.

Verizon touted mobile live TV, a new electronic guide and local TV channels for FiOS.

Cable? Well, at least there wasn't a repeat of the 2006 CES press conference extolling the interactivity-enabling OpenCable Application Platform. Cable CEOs' best explanation of OCAP's consumer benefits at that time came down to enabling a single remote to control a set-top, a TV, a DVD player and other devices.

Universal remotes really don't get consumer-electronics writers excited.

There were a couple of advancements on old cable announcements at this CES:

• Panasonic is getting a trial with Comcast of OCAP-enabled, interactive digital-TV sets, after last January's deal to work together on OCAP applications and digital set-tops.

• MobiTV said it will supply TV programming to the Sprint Nextel joint venture with cable operators, an undertaking that's off to a quiet start; and

• Comcast demoed a Motorola set-top with TiVo navigation now in trial in Denver, following the companies' March 2005 agreement.

Meanwhile …

• Apple CEO Steve Jobs was in San Francisco, showing off the snazzy new touch-screen iPhone and the AppleTV playback device at Macworld;

• Dell CEO Michael Dell was in Las Vegas at CES, urging cable companies to get more bandwidth to the people (something Intel's Andy Grove was doing a decade ago) and to donate money to plant trees; and

• Comcast CEO Brian Roberts was at a Citigroup investor conference near CES in Vegas. What was he touting? Prospects for telephone revenue from small companies, “a natural extension” of the existing business. Talk about a contrast.

There's logic to all this, though, beyond cable's natural conservatism, born out of years of overpromising new services, underdelivering and then getting punished by the stock market.

Satellite TV is still a consumer-electronics retail product, so it needs to make a splash at CES. Get some good press for your new movie-download service and growing HDTV lineup, sell more HD DVR boxes and add customers.

Verizon's FiOS TV and broadband services are still new to consumers, and the telcos need product innovations (like local channels and maybe a better guide) to set their TV services apart from cable and satellite.

Cable doesn't need CES so much. A growing number of cable executives go to the show every year, of course, to keep up with what competitors are doing and to see what zippy new applications might someday run on cable or create demand for cable modems. (Disclosure: four Multichannel News editors went, but I didn't.)

Bob Zitter, chief technology officer at HBO, told MCN's Todd Spangler cable's cool embrace of CES is all about historical tensions between the two industries. “Speaking personally, I think it's sad that the cable industry and the consumer-electronics industry didn't spend the last 10 years going down a collaborative road,” he said.

But Louise Mooney, a technology publicist with strong cable ties who went for five years, but not this time, said cable's playing it smart at CES. “It's a device show,” and cable would be foolish to compete for attention there.

Cable folks are smart to do what they're doing, she said — going in order to keep up with the competition and not to make noise.

Roberts got rewarded for his decision to emphasize the unsexy sizzling prospects for high-margin small-business voice revenue. Merrill Lynch's Jessica Reif Cohen “strongly” restated her buy rating on Comcast after his presentation at the Citigroup event. Last Tuesday, she ticked up her price target on Time Warner to $27 from $23.

Time Warner closed Wednesday at $22.25, a new 52-week high, and Comcast's CMCSA shares ended that day at $42.91, just below the 52-week high of $43.41.

Cable stocks in general rose 40% last year.

When the boats are rising, CES is no place to rock them.

Disaster Images

By: Oct 23 2007 - 5:26pm

Just mind blowing, toggling between BBCA’s “BBC World News America” and CNN’s “The Situation Room.”

First, incredibly, on BBCA is a roundup story about rains and flooding in – New Orleans. Eight inches of rain, the blurb noted. TST and I were just down there last week and it rained hard for short bursts. And eight inches of rain might well overwhelm things in various places here in New York.

But it was just incredibly chilling to see, having just had a tour through the newly carpeted Morial Convention Center, where so many took emergency shelter in the awful days after Hurricane Katrina. One quick image on the BBCA blurb, of a street with water over a man’s ankles, looked a bit like the Lakeview drive I took last Thursday.

Then on CNN, rivers of flame along the California hillsides, and the Katrina comparisons – 500,000 have been evacuated, the most since Katrina and Hurricane Rita; evacuees are headed to Qualcomm Stadium; FEMA says it’s much better prepared now. Two have died, at this writing (8:15 p.m.), a far cry from Katrina, but the smoke issue is a real one and will be for days. The media have leapt into action, undoubtedly for good, and stories like these are what keep news channels in business. But it really just makes you shiver to see.


They'll Be Happy to See Y'all in Big Easy

By: Oct 18 2007 - 5:54pm

NEW ORLEANS — "Did we mention how happy we are you’re back?"

Prospective Cable Show (or National Show, if you prefer) exhibitors and a few invited trade press types heard that repeatedly Wednesday at a meeting at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The place that’s hosted eight National Shows, most recently in 2004. The place that’ll host it again next May 18-20.

Nothing is normal about this convention’s return, as nothing is normal in Nawlins. There’s pre- and post-Katrina, as Cox Communications local manager of public & government affairs Brad Grundmeyer notes, but there’s no prospect of returning to normal, even two plus years removed from the hurricane and subsequent catastrophic flooding.

But having the cable convention back will do its part, as representatives of city hotels and tourism promoters stressed to about 30 representatives of exhibiting companies.

Grundmeyer — who attended the meeting with other Cox representatives, as the host cable operator — said attendees will hear variations on those warm words of welcome many times. And they’re heartfelt expressions, he said.

"We just appreciate people coming and making us feel that we’re here and this is a viable city," Grundmeyer said, whispering outside a hall where author J.K. Rowling was scheduled to read a "Harry Potter" passage to local school kids Thursday. "We know it’s crazy to live here, but we love it, and we want to share our culture in a profound way."

Tourism officials said if anything the city will be better hosts than in the past. 

Millions are being spent on making the hotels better, even though none (save the renovated and reopened Windsor Court) of the downtown hotels suffered water damage, officials said.

There are actually more great restaurants now than before the flood, we were told.

And the city also has spent millions to clean up the oft-trashy sidewalks in the French Quarter. "The French Quarter is as immaculate as it’s ever been, since I was a baby," New Orleans Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau convention marketer Sallee Pavlovich declared.

Remarkably, Pavlovich and her comrades felt compelled to address a number of fundamental possible fears about coming back to this unique American city.

The water is drinkable and the air is just fine, they said.

In the Eighth District, which includes the central business district and the French Quarter, "we have not had a homicide since January first," Pavlovich said. "We have a very safe community for our visitors."

She did note, though, that there are parts of the city — notably the Ninth Ward and the Lakeview area near Lake Ponchartrain — that suffered extensive damage that’s still quite evident today.

I took her suggestion Thursday and, en route to the airport, took a short taxi detour through Lakeview and drove past the 17th Street Canal levee that collapsed.

There are several brand-new homes with freshly sodded lawns in the West End area where my Haitian-born taxi driver, Fritznel Esperance, drove me around.

There are also numerous homes that have been at least temporarily abandoned, bisected by brown horizontal lines that showed where the water rose.

"Gone to Tennessee Be Back Later! Love Jessica & Cody" was spraypainted on the side of one of them.

A Cox Communications white pickup truck drove through one quiet intersection, just as Esperance was telling me how drowned victims were still being removed from their homes months after the August 2005 catastrophe.

Some of the exhibitor representatives who had toured the city on Tuesday expressed shock at the state of some of those neighborhoods.

But overall, they seemed reassured the convention center and nearby hotels would be ready for the cable show and its 15,000 plus attendees.

I agree, it will be. 

The Quarter looked much the same to me — but often eerily quiet. The last big convention, of law enforcement, had just ended. Wednesday night, the line outside Acme Oyster House was short, seats at the bar readily available at around 7:30. The Abita, served in plastic go cups, was cold, and the raw oysters delicious.

Thursday morning, the Quarter — steamy even after a thunderstorm — was indeed quiet, almost like a Saturday or a holiday. Tables were easy to find at Cafe du Monde, where the beignets and cafe au lait were steamy, too, and the breezes welcome at a shady spot.

And the sidewalks were clean.

Spring is Breaking

By: Mar 4 2008 - 8:05am

Some survival tips for cable’s last (at least for a while) "Spring Break" week in New York City, which hits a peak today (March 4).

First, don’t be deceived by the balmy 61 degrees and sunshine this morning. The forecast is for rain, starting early this afternoon. Bring an umbrella.

Second, don’t forget the day’s events are not all in the same location, the way they have been some years past. This morning’s Horowitz Associates multicultural forum and the Multichannel News/WICT New York chapter Wonder Women luncheon are at the New York Hilton on Sixth Avenue. The Cable Positive dinner, featuring "The Power Awards," tonight is at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. Always good to be at the right hotel.

Third… well does there always have to be a third?

See you around. 

***

Update, update: My umbrella advice was a good one as it sprinkled pretty hard coming out of the Hilton where the Wonder Women luncheon was held. My next piece of advice is: if you buy an umbrella from a street vendor, don’t pay more than $3.

We’ll be posting more from the Wonder Women event in a little while, but for now I must share one aside that likely won’t make it into the coverage.

CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, one of three celebrity presenters at the event, is getting on the escalator on the way down from the ballroom area. When she’s fan-accosted by well-known Manhattan public-access TV host Robin Byrd. The Robin Byrd of numerous court decisions keeping her sexually explicit show on cable, to Time Warner Cable’s chagrin.

I was a few steps down but I believe it was Byrd who said to O’Brien — "You’re a pioneer!" Came the somewhat muted reply: "So are you!"

You won’t get a spring-break moment like that in Washington next year.

Martin's a Riot

By: Nov 12 2007 - 8:30am

Kevin Martin’s calling cable television too powerful, and in need of more regulation, could make cable operators laugh if they weren’t already crying.

The Federal Communications Commission chairman’s timing is perfectly awful. Cable stocks are in a freefall over basic subscriber losses and rising competitive threats. Phone company multichannel video distribution is growing. DirecTV is in a huge acquisition campaign built around a plethora of high-definition channels.

Now is when Martin apparently wants to claim cable has 70% of the multichannel video market (homes that can get cable), giving the FCC powers to cap big operators or force carriage of certain channels. A time when cable subscribers appear to be on the decline while satellite TV continues to grow, and telco video becomes a bigger option.

Why, because Big Ten Network and NFL Network aren’t on every basic cable system?

Too bad the facts don’t bear him up, much less the competitive trends.

Craig Moffett of Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said in a research note Monday his firm figures “cable penetration of cable-available homes is between just 50 and 54%. We don’t believe any study could conceivably satisfy the 70/70 rule.”

Moffett goes on to note Martin’s steady string of rulings that go against cable industry interests: on set-top security, on carriage of multiple TV signals from broadcasters, on franchising and on contracts with apartment building owners.

While the impact of Martin’s rulings has been mixed, Moffett notes, “this latest development makes clear that the Chairman remains strongly disposed against cable, and appears increasingly to be turning his agenda towards open campaign against the industry.”

He might even make cable operators seem sympathetic with moves like this one.

That would make lots of people laugh.

Don’t Fret Yet, DVR Users

By: Aug 21 2007 - 3:18pm

Hey, Time Warner Cable subscribers. They’re coming to your home soon to rip the digital video recorder out of the wall. So best hide it in the basement.

No, that’s not really happening. But you might think so from some of the Web backlash after a newspaper report Monday about the cable company’s plans to add a new service called “Look Back,” starting in South Carolina this October.

Bloggers weren’t keen on the initiative – which has been much discussed by Time Warner and builds on other headend-based features such as the “Start Over” function that lets viewers zip back to the start of a show in progress. “Look Back” takes it a step further and lets viewers call up shows that have already aired but haven’t been recorded on a DVR.

One headline was “Mock-DVR Shoves Ads Down Your Throat,” on a home-theater enthusiasts’ site. That refers to the inability to fast-forward through commercials, the aspect of the new free-of-charge service that drove the bloggers wild.

Others said Time Warner was trying to turn back the clocks on DVRs and described “Look Back,” “Start Over” and other initiatives as “crippled DVR-esque services” (Consumerist.com).

The newspaper piece, in The New York Times, quoted Time Warner Inc. COO Jeff Bewkes from the CTAM Summit in July. Bewkes said then he thinks consumers don’t really care that much about skipping past ads. They care about time shifting, or watching shows when they want to see them versus when they’re scheduled to air.

That dovetails with research coming out this week from Leichtman Research Group of Durham, N.H. “What I want, when I want (time shifting) and an easy way to record are viewed as the top two benefits by owners in a study that we just completed,” analyst Bruce Leichtman said. “Jeff is right. It is not about live TV and it is not about ad skipping. In fact, from a tracking standpoint, pausing live TV is losing its significance.”

ABC ad sales executive Mike Shaw told MediaPost’s MediaDailyNews last month he’d love to see cable operators disable fast-forward buttons when they deploy new DVRs. Consumers wouldn’t really mind, he said: "I’m not so sure that the whole issue really is one of commercial avoidance. It really is a matter of convenience–so you don’t miss your favorite show.”

MDN readers begged to differ! “The reason I own a DVR is to fast forward through commercials,” one commenter responded flatly.

Others said skipping ads wasn’t the main reason they got a TiVo or a cable DVR – but once a DVR is in the house, that’s a very popular feature, being able to zip through 12 minutes or so of ads in a one-hour show.

Nielsen surveyed DVR users in 1,750 homes and determined more than half were avoiding commercials – but also concluded that’s not as bad as some industry watchers assumed. Nielsen figures DVR penetration is only about 17% of 114 million U.S. TV homes, so half of that 17% is a small percentage. (Leichtman says DVR penetration is about 20%, but he still figures less than 5% of overall U.S. TV viewing is of recorded or on-demand shows.)

DVR fans’ anxiety is understandable, though. If DirecTV and Dish Network hadn’t aggressively pushed DVRs, cable operators might still be dragging their feet on the rollout. In addition to the capital costs for the boxes, DVRs are a threat to operators’ local ad sales because of the fast-forward button.

DVRs have proven to be a revenue generator, though. And operators apparently are seeing a chance to get even more revenue from them. Comcast is bumping up the subscriber price for DVR service by $3, to $12.99, at least in New England, the Boston Globe reported last week. Comcast cited higher costs for newer, higher capacity high-definition DVRs. That’s still less than rival Verizon charges for DVR service: $12.99, with an increase to $15.99 coming soon for new FiOS TV customers, the Globe said.

Bottom line: DVRs and their fast-forward buttons aren’t going away. Viewing features such a “Start Over” and “Look Back” – or free on-demand replays of ABC and ESPN programming on Cox Communications – are extras that will enhance a cable operator’s ability to retain video customers by making popular shows more accessible.

So don’t hide the box just yet.

 

 

Mea Culpa on Reporting Error

By: Feb 11 2008 - 10:55am

Hallmark Channel HD will be available to affiliates on April 2 but it won’t be on DirecTV, as I mistakenly reported elsewhere on this Web site and in print.

Multichannel News corrections typically don’t lay blame on how these mistakes happen, so let me use this blog post to explain to our readers that I made the mistake. It wasn’t bad information from anyone, it was just a mistake that I made and didn’t confirm with DirecTV, much as it pains me to write that. There was a portion of the story that appeared to paraphrase a Hallmark executive as discussing affiliates in addition to DirecTV, but that was an extension of the original mistake, not the words of that Hallmark executive.

DirecTV rightly points out this is a mistake that costs them time and money, and that it could have been avoided with a phone call, and they’re right. I apologize to DirecTV, to Hallmark channel and to our readers and anyone who might have picked up this incorrect report.

Another Weir Rides the Bus

By: Sep 10 2007 - 1:12pm

Stargate Atlantis has the Stargate spotlight all to itself on Sci Fi Fridays, so no more comparisons from reviewers like moi privy to the first two episodes of season four.

But the new setup isn’t all good for all cast members, as fans of the Sci Fi Channel drama already know – and as has been nagging at me since seeing the review disk. Torri Higginson’s character, Dr. Elizabeth Weir, the civilian leader of a key U.S. Air Force installation in another galaxy in the ancient city of Atlantis, has been reduced to a “recurring” role.

Taking Weir’s place in the star firmament of Atlantis is Amanda Tapping, who was the female lead in Stargate SG-1, the MGM show originally starring Richard Dean Anderson that premiered on Showtime in 1997 and spent its last five seasons on Sci Fi Channel. Sci Fi didn’t renew SG-1 for season 11, so MGM is producing SG-1 movies for DVD instead.

Sci Fi tried to promote Higginson, showing off her humor in interviews and behind-scenes videos and showing off her figure a little more in costume on the show. Tapping remains a bigger star, though, even after taking maternity leave in 2005.

My opinion: Tapping’s character of Samantha Carter, the brainy and weapons-trained astrophysicist and Air Force officer, deserves her continued service on Sci Fi in Atlantis’s Pegasus galaxy. Carter’s been tough, brilliant and gorgeous in Stargate roles longer than Weir, and has a big following.

But it would seem there ought to be room for both Carter and Weir, who was badly injured in an explosion during last season’s cliff-hanger ending. 

Accommodating Carter is something that’s happened to Weir, before, too.

Stargate SG-1 two-part episode Lost City, at the end of the seventh season, introduced Dr. Elizabeth Weir as the new civilian commander of SG-1’s Stargate Command, in Colorado. Placed in a very difficult position, Weir backed the SG-1 team at the right moments, while fending off attempts to influence her by the nasty vice president who put her in that job.

That Elizabeth Weir was played by Jessica Steen, a blonde actress who might be best known for being in the show Earth2 and who, in my opinion, shone in the role on SG-1.

Why didn’t the same actress play the role when it shifted to the new spinoff Stargate Atlantis?

Possibly because she looked a little too much like Tapping, also a blonde Canadian-born actress.

Steen’s Web site doesn’t even list her Stargate SG-1 guest stint in her resume and filmography. And here’s how the FAQ section of the site ends:

Q: Jessica played the character of Dr. Elizabeth Weir in the season 7 finale of Stargate SG-1. Why did they hire another actress to play that same character in the spinoff series Stargate: Atlantis?

A: We don’t know why. When Jessica was hired for the two-part Season 7 finale (Lost City) she was told that her character might be in a possible Stargate spinoff series. Jessica was even paid not to take any other work until it was decided if they were going to do the spinoff. Stargate: Atlantis was eventually given the green light, but for whatever reason, "the powers that be" decided to go with another actress.

Now, the powers that be have downgraded what About.com reviewer Mark Wilson called “the brunette version of Dr. Weir," too, in deference to Tapping’s Samantha Carter.

I remain a Stargate fan, and Higginson has some shining moments in the first two episodes of Atlantis’s Season Four, returning on Sept. 28. There’s still a nice photo of her on Sci Fi’s Atlantis home page. And the long-established (on SG-1 and Atlantis), often adversarial relationship between Carter and Atlantis brainiac Dr. Rodney McKay (David Hewlett) always leads to fun dialogue.

But I’m forced to agree with Wilson on this point: “Dr. Weir, as interpreted by either actor, is a great character and it’s a shame that she has to fade into the background just so that Atlantis [can] pull a Worf.”

(Translation installing a character from an earlier hit in the franchise, like the Klingon character Worf who was first in Star Trek: The Next Generation then in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.)

Higginson is expected to return for Atlantis’s midseason finale on Dec. 7.

 

 

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