Snake Bit

One wouldn't blame members of the Federal Communications Commission if they thought twice in the future about accepting invitations to speak before the National Association of Telecommunications Officers & Advisers.

And that's not because of the thorny questions of local pre-emption, although there are plenty of those. It's just that some of the feds have really bad luck making it to the trade show.

Three years ago, then-cable bureau chief Deb Lathen had a flight cancelled (bad weather attributable to a hurricane) and her train blocked (mud slide) before she opted to try to fly out again the next day to NATOA's meeting in Atlanta. But it was not to be.

As she drove to a 5:30 a.m. flight from Dulles International Airport, a tree limb fell on her cab and put her in the hospital.

This year, the unlucky executive was Dane Snowden, chief of the consumer protection bureau. He was scheduled to participate at a Sept. 21 panel on customer service at NATOA's meeting in Chicago. He flew in Friday night and made it to within two blocks of the convention hotel before he was involved in a traffic accident that totaled his rental car and sent him to the hospital.

He got sprung —and honored his commitment — but left immediately afterward to get home to see his own physician.

New Wireless Competitor?

There wasn't much buzz about the first-ever press room sponsor at the 2001 Emmy Awards. After two cancellations and a change of venue to a cramped, dim restaurant, the crabby scribes didn't have much time or inclination to watch demos of the sponsor, Microsoft Corp.'s Ultimate TV.

A Wire correspondent had even forgotten all about the deal until a woman wove her way through the cables and lights that night, passing out pens for the interactive product.

Perhaps Microsoft should have pushed for a little more pizzazz, like this year's sponsor, Nokia Corp. Usually only talent gets gift bags, but reporters found little golden swag bags at their work positions at this year's awards. Free stuff always gets our attention. That, and the cool phone they were there to promote.

Yes, a lot more writers went over to check out Nokia's next-generation phone, especially after representatives were seen jostling for photo position, taking digital pictures with their cells. Reps said the Nokia 3650 is capable of video capture and playback, multimedia messaging and actual phone calls.

Emmy presenters were given the phones. Reporters got … pens.

Can They Hack It?

A year ago, you may have read about Television City — the research facility the CBS Television Network installed at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas — in this space. Workers there snag vacationers to view episodes from Viacom Inc. broadcast and cable shows and offer feedback for the network or producers.

(Sounds like hooking panelists is the most difficult part. Las Vegas is rife with time-share shills, and Television City barkers told us they have to rapidly communicate that they aren't selling condos.)

The recent viewing schedule offered a hint to the show on The Eye's schedule that is creating agita
for execs. Television City was offering $100 each to couples to view an episode of Hack ,
the David Morse drama about a cab driver-slash-crime fighter. The couples were separated by gender into large groups and quizzed on everything from Morse's sex appeal ("OK for a man his age") to the violence level, casting and story flow.

Legal, But Not Brief

Court TV helped set the stage for Hell Week, assembling a diversity of forensic opinions about the current U.S. Supreme Court.

The Fred Graham-moderated conversation took place last Sunday night at New York's 92nd Street Y and starred dueling Rehnquist-court authors Martin Garbus (Courting Disaster) and Ken Starr (First Among Equals). Conservative law prof John McGinniss and American Civil Liberties Union general counsel Susan Herman sat between them.

The 90 minutes had mostly passed — with a highbrow colloquy over federalism and judicial activism — before Graham could squeeze in an audience question.

Unsurprisingly, that first question was about how the court handled Bush v. Gore.

Garbus quipped that both he and Starr dealt with that situation in their books.

"We both agree there was an election," he said.

The biggest surprise was that Starr and Herman agreed on something: they both said the Rehnquist court has solidly defended the First Amendment.

Fullest Disclosure

Media pundit Paul Kagan took a shot at the increasingly strange disclaimers buried in the fine print in stock analyst reports at his Kagan Broadband Summit conference in New York last week.

Kagan took note of one such note in a report on AOL Time Warner Inc. by Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder Inc., analyst Robert Routh. Routh informed readers that he does not own stock in AOL but that "his mother does." So Kagan offered the following at the bottom of one of his many charts at the conference:

"The creator of this slide owns shares in several publicly traded cable MSOs. He has done no investment banking work for any MSO. His mother and father, both deceased, do not own any cable shares, nor did they while they were alive. However, his wife's nephew may possibly have a positive relationship with his local cable operator as the result of a successful cable-modem install."