Santa's Robot Helpers

Cable may have stumbled last year, but the battling robots featured on shows like Comedy Central's BattleBots, TNN's Robot Wars
and The Learning Channel's Robotica
helped boost toy action-figure sales 36 percent, Toy Industry Association chairman Patrick Feely said at the recent American International Toy Fair in New York.

Not surprisingly, given the circumstances, G.I. Joe and Rescue Heroes Aqua Command Center were also big sellers last Christmas, Feely reported.

At the opposite end of the toy spectrum, Marie Osmond
was at Toy Fair to unveil her new line of "Little Miracles" collectible dolls, which she'll hawk this week on QVC on Feb. 20.

She may have a harder time than the soldiers or firemen. Sales in the traditional toy segment of the $25 billion business were flat, rising just 1.6 percent last year.

Courtside with Bedol

Was that Brian Bedol, co-founder of Classic Sports Network, The Wire saw sitting about four rows from the court at a recent New Jersey Nets basketball game?

It was indeed, and we discovered that Bedol's excellent seats weren't a fluke. He took some of the many millions he made from the sale of Classic Sports to ESPN four years ago and bought himself a small piece of the National Basketball Association franchise as a minority shareholder. He also may be sitting next to the players because he worked behind the scenes last year to help the Nets join forces with the New York Yankees in YankeeNets, the holding company that owns the baseball and basketball teams and the NHL New Jersey Devils.

Bedol's timing always was good, and sure enough, the surprising Nets are currently the best team in the NBA's Eastern Conference, playing a "classic" team game led by old-school, all-star point guard Jason Kidd.

His daytime energies are spent as president and CEO of Fusient Media Ventures, which almost bought World Championship Wrestling from AOL Time Warner Inc. last year. It's now investing in other sports and entertainment properties.

Bedol's partner and Classic Sports co-founder Steve Greenberg
remains chairman of the company for now, but is heading over to join long-time financial backer Herb Allen at the prestigious media-oriented investment banking firm Allen & Co.

EchoStars and Stripes

As it fights its way through the merger review process, EchoStar Communications Corp. has come under attack for a lot of things in recent weeks, but nobody can accuse the company of being un-American — at least not after last Monday's on-air Tech Chat
with consumers, which the company broadcasts during months when chairman Charlie Ergen
takes a break from his Charlie Chat.

During last week's show, EchoStar engineers and hosts for the evening Mark Jackson and David Kummer unveiled Ergen's latest attention-getter — a new EchoStar roof-top antenna painted with the United States flag. EchoStar gave the dish away to the lucky Dish Network subscriber who e-mailed his response to a query about which sites around the country require the U.S. flag to fly 24 hours a day.

At least for now, other Dish subs can't have a red-white-and-blue dish of their own. The company, though, may make the patriotic hardware available for sale later in the year.

Getting All the Answers

Watch out Game Show Network! Game show buffs are flocking to a sharp little Web site for their game show news fix — and it ain't yours. It seems that the "Game Show Convention Center" (www.tvgameshows.net) has become The New York Times
of the field, dishing all the latest genre news without fear or favor — and lately beating mainstream press sources to cable game developments.

The site, overseen by Union University professor Steve Beverly, broke news of USA Network's decision to send its highly promoted Smush
to the midnight showers, as well as GSN's call to overturn its renewal of Hollywood Showdown, while promising Showdown
host Todd Newton another show to MC.

Beverly also assigned a Los Angeles-based reporter to crash GSN's party at the recent Television Critics Association tour, coming away with scoops du jour on the channel's 2002 original program development plans, as well as interviews with game hosts Monty Hall, Alex Trebek, Bob Eubanks, Chuck Woolery and Peter Tomarken.

Beverly's nose for news has attracted GSN's attention. When he appeared on a nationally-syndicated radio show recently, GSN programming vice president Bob Boden
called up with some development news of his own.

Seeing Starz in Denver

No one ever said John Sie
doesn't think big. The founder, chairman and CEO of Starz Encore Group LLC has finally gotten the green light to install a huge 16-foot high electronic sign for the Starz Encore Film Center, a new facility to be built on the site of the old Tivoli multiplex, on the University of Colorado's Auraria Campus in Denver.

The project got started two years ago when Starz Encore and the Anna and John J. Sie Foundation donated $5 million to the University of Colorado at Denver and the Denver Film Society to boost film history and education and raise the profile of Denver's International Film Festival. Current plans call for a complete refurbishment of the multiplex into a state-of-the-art, multimedia venue that will screen commercial art-house movies, classic films and premieres of Starz Encore originals.

Sie plans to raise several million more dollars in contributions to fund the restoration, which may take up to a year to complete and will begin after this October's festival ends.

The final step was official approval of the giant sign for the historic landmark.