NBA Star’s Injury Crimps Comcast, Too

National Basketball Association top draft pick Greg Oden’s season-ending knee surgery could deal nearly as big a blow to Comcast as it will to his team, the star-crossed, Paul Allen-owned Portland Trail Blazers.

Comcast was hoping to ride momentum in Portland behind Oden and the team — shut out of the playoffs since 2002-03 — to help sell in its new, $2-per-subscriber Comcast SportsNet Northwest network.

Last week’s revelation that the seven-footer needs major knee surgery wasn’t helpful in that regard.

Comcast said it’s still optimistic, though. “We conceived of this network even before the draft because of the Trail Blazers’ long-term team potential with a nucleus of several young players,” Comcast SportsNet spokesman Tim Fitzpatrick said. “While [last week’s] news is disappointing, we are as excited as ever about the start of the new season and our relationship with the Blazers.”

Whether that excitement translates into new affiliate deals remains to be seen. Comcast is the dominant player in the market and will, of course, carry the network, but it hasn’t yet reached distribution deals with other cablers in the market area — including Allen-controlled Charter Communications — nor with DirecTV or Dish Network.

Still, Comcast said it’s in it for the long haul and expects affiliates to take a long-term approach to the network, too.

After all, the 19-year-old former Ohio State center should be back for 2008-09.

'Dirty Jobs’ Star’s No Pig About His Porcine Co-Star

Perhaps you’ve seen the ads promoting Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs, featuring star Mike Rowe and his big promo co-star, a 100-pound pig on a pedestal.

The popular spots were developed by Stun Creative, which placed Rowe in a white, pristine background, a stark contrast to the filthy, grimy world that Rowe usually inhabits on his show.

Each ad has Rowe conversing with the pig about everything from crumping at the nightclubs to his extensive resume of dirty jobs, which include a stint as an artificial inseminator for a pig.

But the porky co-star is just so … big that in some of the spots, it upstages the show’s star just by being there.

Rowe, in a humorous comment provided by the agency, said: “For nearly three years, I have been continually upstaged by dozens of species and countless barnyard animals. Now, the visionaries at Stun Creative have placed me next to an enormous swine in a widespread marketing campaign. Naturally, I have fired both my agent and my publicist, and am currently seeking new representation. However, I must admit that Stun Creative has done a masterful job of calling attention to the underlying themes of Dirty Jobs, while launching the career of an anonymous pig at the expense of my own.”

More to Diversity Week Than Just the Big Events

This week is the rite of fall in cable known as Diversity Week (and allegorically, because of its hectic nature, as Hell Week). People come into New York City from far and wide to attend the Walter Kaitz Foundation dinner on Wednesday night at the Hilton, this year honoring Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) and ESPN and raising funds for three organizations that help women and ethnic minorities find fulfillment in cable careers.

The NAMIC Foundation’s annual conference gets going in earnest on Monday and runs through Wednesday. The conference features a keynote by Mariane Pearl, widow of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter slain by terrorists. Panel sessions tackle ethnic and racial diversity in marketing, ad sales, affiliate sales and other areas.

Other organizations have their own events that draft off those two big ones, such as (shameless plug) a Multichannel News-sponsored breakfast Tuesday during the NAMIC Conference on topics of diversity as they relate to sports on TV. CTAM New York has a Blue Ribbon Breakfast planned for Wednesday at Gotham Hall, Broadway and 36th Street, with programmers and cable operators talking about broadband TV and how cable can capitalize on it. (It’s sold out, according to http://www.ctamny.com/.)

The Broadcast Cable Financial Management Association is holding a regional conference Wednesday afternoon at the Penn Club on the topic of making money from the growth of personalized media (cost: $219 for members, $419 for non-members).

Lifetime TV and its partners in the Every Woman Counts Coalition — Redbook, Cosmo Girl and Marie Claire magazines — are having a launch event Tuesday for the effort, which encourages women to get involved in politics, as candidates and engaged voters.

And, if the weather’s nice — heck, yes, it has rained during past Diversity Weeks — another fine place to be on Tuesday morning might be Bryant Park. Outdoor Channel’s planning a demonstration of … diving dock dogs!

Promoting the Oct. 4 launch of new series DockDogs, the demo will feature top-ranked canines sprinting down a 40-foot dock, flying through the air and landing in a specially built pool of water in pursuit of a target. Their distances are digitally measured, and the longest jump wins. It’s open to the viewing public, with veterinarians on hand to provide advice to pet owners, and expects coverage on CBS’s The Early Show during media demos from 7 to 9 a.m.; the public action gets going at 10 a.m.

Event diversity in action.