Dangerous? No

It seemed innocent enough when Time Warner Cable marketing director of ad sales Karen Narciso checked in at the San Antonio airport for a short hop to Dallas.

Security went through her bags — nothing exciting in there. But they did discover some contraband: It seems that she had on her person a Court TV premium: a key chain that sported a tiny set of handcuffs, each no larger than an inch.

Apparently fearful the cable executive would use them to overpower and imprison a teeny, tiny pilot, airport security deemed them "dangerous" and had them confiscated. Narciso told the network that in the future, she plans to travel with a box of Court TV caps bearing the U.S. flag on the front.

Dangerous? Yes

But if you want to talk about real jeopardy, talk to technicians Erwin Loveland and Jeremy Moore of the Charter Communications Inc. system in Vincennes, Ind. They came face to face last week with a mentally ill man, and he wasn't armed with mini-handcuffs.

The techs were in the field trying to determine the source of some damage to the plant when a man in a house nearby began firing a shotgun at them. Each man fled to his truck, but Moore was forced to abandon his vehicle when the shooter blew out the passenger-side window.

Both installers escaped unharmed, but the man continued to shoot at the truck.

After an eight-hour standoff with police, the man was charged with criminal recklessness and pointing a loaded weapon.

According to Charter's internal newsletter, this is the first incident of its kind in the company's history. And, we add, hopefully the last.

The Strife of O'Reilly

Perhaps the liveliest session at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif. last week pitted Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly against the pundits.

O'Reilly obviously reveled in the opportunity to tell scribes off for their inability to write about him without using pejorative adjectives like "bellicose" and "conservative." When challenged, he clarified that he didn't mean "conservative" is a bad thing.

He sent reporters scurrying to file sound bites when he dissed former associate Paula Zahn. Her new employer, Cable News Network, was criticized for a short-lived promotional spot describing her as "sexy." O'Reilly said if Zahn doesn't think she got the job at least in part because "she's a good looking babe, then she's in never-never land." He added, "Eleanor Roosevelt would never be an anchorwoman."

But he wouldn't take the bait and criticize his new co-worker, Geraldo Rivera. Rivera allegedly carried a firearm in Afganistan and provided inaccurate reportage from the field.

"The man has a gun. I'm not going to say anything bad about him," he quipped. "If he wants to go skeet-shooting in Kabul, that's up to him."

Good for the Goose…

Actor and comedian Steve Harvey was miffed at TV writers last Monday during the Television Critics Tour in Pasedena, Calif. for blowing off Black Entertainment Television's presentation.

Harvey, who appeared as a panelist for the BET session, chastised the majority of writers for disrespecting BET by walking out of the room immediately after the previous presentation from MTV: Music Television was finished.

But three days later, writers felt Harvey returned the snub by not showing up as scheduled for a Comedy Central panel discussing the network's upcoming documentary, Heroes of Black Comedy, in which Harvey is prominently featured. Comedy officials said Harvey had a last-minute family situation to attend to, but given what went down earlier, The Wire guesses that one good turn deserved another.

Interactive Espionage

Where are those James Bond-esque microphones — the ones hidden inside a martini olive on a swizzle stick — when you need 'em?

That's what sales and marketing execs with both Canal Plus U.S. Technologies and competitor OpenTV Inc. were wondering last week, when they found themselves at the swank W San Francisco Hotel for strategy meetings.

Salespeople for the competing interactive-TV providers eyed each other across the bar, an ironic twist given that day's topic for each company: How to trounce the other. Oops!

As one participant put it, "We couldn't tell who was spying and who was schmoozing." The Wire's take: If one of 'em doesn't buy the other by the time of the 2003 sales and marketing confab, they'll be drinking their rotgut at the Holiday Inn Hoboken.

Outside the Footprint

Cox Communications Inc.'s cable system in Fairfax County, Va., is the broadband home of two Federal Communications Commission members — Republican chairman Michael Powell and Democrat Michael Copps, both of whom thirst for a drink from cable's high-speed-data faucet.

At last week's FCC meeting, Copps raised some questions about whether cable Internet is really available to 70 percent of U.S. homes. FCC Cable Services Bureau Chief W. Kenneth Ferree said he was comfortable with the 70 percent homes-passed figure, noting that cable's rollout of broadband is contained in publicly traded cable companies' reports to Wall Street.

"I don't have it and I've been trying like heck to get it," Copps said. "When you say they go past my house, you are exactly right."

Powell said he can't get Cox's high-speed service either. "Message to Cox: Get to us," Powell said.

Videos That Suck

For those who like music and believe parody is the sincerest form of flattery, then MuchMusic USA was the place to be last weekend. The interactive network sent up the music-video business with its "You Suck Weekend," providing viewers with a chance to vote for videos that either do or don't, well, suck.

MuchMusic also poked fun at VH1 and Casey Kasem with Behind the Music That Sucks
(an animated segment that spoofed Kiss and Christina Aguilera, among others) and American Suck Countdown
segments. Guess Who Sucks
aired the results from viewers who cast their votes on mmusa.tv after on-screen prompts.

For those who missed out on the irreverent fun, MuchMusic will allow viewers to again determine what sucks on Jan. 26 and 27.

Supreme Split

You got to hand it to those cable lawyers for managing to crack the Supreme Court's most cohesive voting bloc.

In last week's decision in the pole-attachment rate case, the high court ruled 6-2 in cable's favor. Justice Antonin Scalia voted in the majority and Justice Clarence Thomas in the minority.

In the court's October 2000 term, conservatives Scalia and Thomas voted together 99 percent of the time. And no two justices voted together as often as Scalia and Thomas.

Tom Goldstein, a Washington attorney who tracks Supreme Court voting trends, said he wasn't worried that the pole case ignited a split between the two justices that would carry over to the future.

"This really is the sort of random case in which they disagree, while they do tend to strongly agree in cases that have real ideological components to them," Goldstein said.

Correction

Turner Network Television's Jan. 14 premiere of its Monday Night Mayhem
movie scored a field goal in the ratings, generating a 3.0 rating. That's better than fumbling, which is what the wire did in its report last week on Turner's pre-screening event for the movie. The wire's report last week that Turner left numerous attendees starving after cancelling a pre-screening party should have drawn a penalty for misinformation. Several Turner executives did plan and executed an informal gathering at the 21 Club prior to the event, but had broken up before the wire's sources arrived, giving the impression that it never happened.