Event Memories and Cable Gossip

We haven’t done a gossipy blog since April 3. So it’s time.

NY Memories

It’s tricky to comment on your own event, and yes, that swooshing sound you just heard might be my integrity flying out the window, but CableFAX’s inaugural Sales Executive of the Year Award in NY on Thursday produced a lot of good moments.

• ESPN’s Sean Bratches, during his Sales Hall of Fame induction, noting proudly that he’d achieved so much in his career and done it all without resorting to steroids of any kind.

• Hallmark’s Janice Arouh, another Hall of Famer, relating that her daughter had asked her now that she’s in the Hall of Fame “do you still have to go to work, Mommy?”

• The humility of the Hall of Fame inductees. Discovery’s Bill Goodwyn noting that senior executives get most of the credit, but that it’s the rank and file sales people who do most of the work.

• Along those lines, I liked AETN’s Mark Garner, another Hall of Famer, giving a shout out to his PR person, long-time cable hand Carole Shander. And how Sportsman’s Mark Kang, whose team won Affiliate Sales Team of the Year (emerging nets), gave much credit to his mentor Bob Rose, now of CBS College Sports.

• Comcast’s Dave Cassaro’s hilarious video spoof of 300, and his acceptance speech, where he paid homage to former boss and now fellow Hall of Famer Joe Abruzzese of Discovery. Joe’s sage advice, Dave said, is that every business experience can be related to a line from “The Godfather.” In fact, when he puts a difficult offer on the table, Dave often says to those on the other side, “Well, someone has to pay for Santino.”

• CBS College Sports’ Adam Zucker, our emcee, was a pro’s pro, adjusting on the fly and looking and sounding so good doing it.

• The wisdom of our Sweet 16, who are advertisers and agency executives. Unilever’s Rob Master summed up what advertisers need from cable now: “Flexibility and the ability to come up with creative ideas” to help their brand partners.

Even a Bad Review Is Good

It’s strange, sometimes, how people, TV series and cable channels gain recognition.

While I wouldn’t argue that the channel TLC is a relative unknown, it and its series Jon and Kate Plus 8 gained far more publicity than Silver Spring’s money could have bought with the news that Jon and Kate’s marriage is on the rocks.

When a Op Ed columnist from The NY Times writes about a relatively unknown television series, it can’t help but bring mass-market recognition. Such recognition sometimes leads to ratings that, for the initial few episodes at least, have gone well above what most cable networks expect.

Then we have the case of Current TV, a cable network most people don’t know much about. It, too, will get more notoriety than it could have hoped, also by an unfortunate incident.

Its infamous claim to fame is linked to two of its young journalists, Una Lee and Laura Ling, who’ve been sentenced to 12 years hard labor in North Korea. Essentially the two were convicted of spying.

Having met Laura Ling only briefly in January and knowing the reputation of North Korea’s regime, I have to conclude the charges are bogus. Current’s stock in trade is hard-hitting stories, many of them requiring its young reporting staff to travel to dangerous parts of the world. It does a very good job in this type of work.

Current’s taking a beating on the blogs for its official silence on the situation. The small network is remaining silent presumably so Gore can work the back channels. Former veep Al Gore, one of the owners of Current, is said to be working behind the scenes to get the two released. Here’s hoping the two journalists are freed soon and that Current is known for the quality of its reporting, not the detention of its reporters.

Big Talent Small Network

Speaking of channels nobody knows, the consensus is David Zaslav must have more in mind for Henry Schleiff than running Investigation Discovery. The chatter is Henry will get at least one more channel in his portfolio before the curtain falls. Henry, one of the most colorful execs and, once you get to know him, one of the nicest, joins Discovery August 1, based in NY. Shall we say his role expands around Labor Day?

One of the publicist’s jobs is to put the best foot forward. That was done nearly expertly in the release about Schleiff and Investigation Discovery. A sample: “Since its launch in January, 2008, Investigation Discovery has experienced 16 consecutive months of year-over-year primetime HH gains and is the fastest growing cable network among the target demographic of women 25-54.” Good stuff.

Here’s more: “In its first time measured in Beta’s Brand Identity Survey, ID ranked #1 as viewers’ favorite channel and was in the top five for being distinctive; being bold and trying new things; and being a channel for which viewers pay more attention to the commercials. In Nielsen’s Media Research study, ID ranked in the top five ad-supported cable networks for length-of-tune in prime time and total day.” Wow.

Interesting then that so many people are prefacing their remarks about Henry’s new gig with ‘I’ve never heard of that network.’

Faithful readers of this blog know better. An Apr 27 post had many kind words for a new series, Dallas DNA, on Investigation Discovery. (We also spent a few lines to inform readers about the lineage of the network.) Ironically, the series, about the Dallas district attorney using previously unused DNA evidence to reopen old cases and sometimes change verdicts, is right up Henry’s alley. In fact, when Scheiff, a U of Pennsylvania Law School alum, ran Court TV, one of the best series there dealt with a similar subject.

Oops

While the Schleiff announcement was very well done, cable historians beg to differ with one fact in the Discovery release.

In its summary of Henry’s accomplishments at Hallmark, it says the following: “…Schleiff oversaw the growth of Hallmark Channel to more than 86 million homes, with ratings performance consistently ranking the network in the top 10 in primetime.” Fine, so far. The next sentence is the problem: “He also expanded the brand with the successful launch of Hallmark Movie Network in standard and high definition.”

In fact, Hallmark Movie Channel launched in 2004. Schleiff came to Hallmark in 2006.

Still, it’s true Henry launched the HD version of Hallmark Movie Channel. In addition, I suppose one could interpret the sentence to mean he was responsible for expanding the movie channel to both standard and HD, but that’s pushing it.