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CABLE WORLD STAFF
No MTV Hail to the Chief In 1993 and then in 1997, MTV rocked the White House with inaugural balls in honor of the Clinton presidency.
Who could forget the Presidential sax solo at the 1993 bash? Or Al Gore's gleeful, "Thank you, MTV!" cry from the stage to the 4,000 "Rock the Vote" partygoers in D.C.?
Don't look for any MTV staffers at the eight "Celebrating America's Spirit Together" GOP balls being held in honor of the new Bush administration. That's because there won't be an MTV-hosted ball at this month's inaugural festivities.
"You can be 99.99% certain that we're not doing anything this year - at least that I've heard of," says MTV Networks spokesperson Paulette Song. "We are, of course, still doing the halftime event at the Super Bowl."
No official reason has been given for the youth network's conspicuous absence from the nation's capital Jan. 20.
Pundits, however, are quick to point out that MTV owner Viacom also owns Simon & Schuster, which signed an $8 million book deal with soon-to-be -former First Lady Hillary Clinton. The new senator from New York was honored at an MTV/Conde Nast cocktail party during the 1997 Presidential Inauguration celebrations, where her well-wishers included none other than Viacom's own chief, Sumner Redstone.
`But It Wasn't Our Fault' Numbers don't lie, but they're not always precise.
On Jan. 2, Comcast Cable Comunications issued a press release stating it had completed its previously announced system swaps with Adelphia Cable and AT&T.
Cable World happened to notice a discrepancy in the "approximate" figures released by Comcast and those in a press release issued by Adelphia. Turns out - oops - Comcast had sent out a working draft of its release rather than a final draft. Although the difference in the numbers in the Adelphia-Comcast swap was negligible, the difference between the numbers released for the swap with AT&T and the actual numbers was much larger.
Instead of an equal swap of 750,000 customers for 750,000 customers, it turns out that Comcast received 770,000 customers from AT&T, and it gave AT&T 700,000 customers. Comcast reported the precise numbers in a Jan. 4 Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
A spokesman says the company felt that since it was such a minor issue it did not call for a corrected release. Several publications, including Cable World and Multichannel News, reported the incorrect, approximate figures.
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