In the Loop

Media-consolidation foe Common Cause will be represented at the FCC's Charlotte, N.C., hearing this week, but not by either the head of the state organization, Bob Phillips, or the national president, Chellie Pingree. Coincidentally, both will be in the state Oct. 22—the date of the evening hearing—but Pingree, accompanied by Phillips, is making an appearance in upstate Winston-Salem at about the same time to talk about campaign-finance reform. FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin (above) can sympathize. He is booked for a dinner speech Oct. 22 in Washington and also will be unable to attend.—J.E.

Cable powerhouses like TNT and USA can usually count on their original movies for ratings pops. That success has spurred some niche nets to get into the movie business in hopes of following suit. Some of those October made-for-TV efforts proved modest at best. Comedy Central's second-ever original movie, Knee High P.I., posted a 0.4 rating for its Oct. 13 debut, according to Nielsen Media Research. That's well below the 0.7 Comedy typically does in prime. Last October, its first original Porn N Chicken posted an encouraging 1.4 debut rating.

Both WE: Women's Entertainment and Oxygen debuted their inaugural original movies this month to what would be middling ratings for most nets. WE's Between Strangers, starring Sophia Loren, mustered a 0.5. Oxygen's Tale of Two Wives (above) bested it by a smidgen, with a 0.6. Still, the networks point out, those ratings were more than double their usual numbers.—A.R.

Word has it that Twentieth Television is taking 24 star Kiefer Sutherland and creator and executive producer Joel Surnow to NATPE in January to kick off the first selling cycle of Fox's critically acclaimed drama.

Whether fans will find Kiefer on the NATPE floor or in the suites remains an open question. Twentieth execs still haven't made up their mind about whether to join majors King World, Carsey-Werner, Universal, NBC Enterprises and Sony on the show floor. This fall, 24 enters its third season, launching with a commercial-free season opener on Oct. 28. The show should be ready to premiere in broadcast syndication in September 2005. Given its cult-hit status, expect a cable window in addition to the broadcast sale.—P.A.

Hearst-Argyle was one of a handful of TV groups that got a one-on-one with President Bush last week. The White House denied that it was bypassing the national media in hopes of getting softball questions from local stations. The president, though, got tough questions, asserted Jennifer Hitchcock, the Hearst journalist who had pitched her group's interview (see "Station Break").

Seconding that was one of the TV group's siblings, the Seattle-Post Intelligencer, whose Oct. 16 editorial stated in part: "President Bush skipped the national media to court regional broadcasters, perhaps hoping to find the questions less sharp and the questioners less cynical. But at WBAL-TV in Baltimore (owned by Hearst-Argyle), the resulting story line was, 'The president is trying to paint a brighter picture of Iraq despite the deaths of more U.S. soldiers today and another deadly car bombing over the weekend.'"—J.E.

News send-up Web site theonion.com featured a story Friday poking fun at media-violence studies. "Study Finds Cable TV Violence Leads to Network TV Violence" screamed the headline. The fictional Institute for Media Research claims that an analysis of cable and network fare shows "that cable television has a quantifiable effect on young network shows. Impressionable shows often look up to their cable counterparts—who have greater freedom—and imitate them in an effort to stay 'edgy.'"

"Researcher" Don Peck asserts that TV crime fighters are "the most significant perpetrators of TV violence," but fictional detective Andy Sipowicz (left), "speaking words written by NYPD Blue creator Steven Bochco," sees it differently: "Every day, our made-up lives are on the line," he says. "If we catch a bullet, there's no way of knowing what could happen, at least not until after the next commercial break."—J.E.