DEMS WIN BIG CONTRIBUTIONS FROM MEDIA

NEW YORK, Oct 11 – Media and entertainment moguls are pouring millions of dollars into this year's presidential election campaigns and it appears that the Democrats are the biggest benefactors, according to this week's cover story in Broadcasting & Cable magazine.

The trade publication says that Marcy Carsey, one of the last and most successful independent TV producers [she's still raking in residuals from The Cosby Show], gave a cool million to the soft money Victory Campaign, which seeks to oust President Bush.

There are other seven figure contributors on the B&C political contribution roster, but it appears that Stephen Bing tops the list. He has sent in almost $7 million dollars to the very same Victory Campaign and nearly a million more to MoveOn.org, another anti-Bush "527' group.

Who is Stephen Bing? He heads up Shangri-La Entertainment but, according to B&C, "until the election season heated up, Stephen Bing's major claim to fame was as the caddish father of actress Elizabeth Hurley's baby a couple of years ago.

"And, Fred Eychaner, president of Newsweb Corp., has given $1.15 million to pro-Democrat 527s; he got some of his fortune by selling a Chicago TV station, WPWR, for $425 million to Rupert Murdoch's Fox,' according to the trade magazine story.

On the other side of the aisle, there are fewer mega contributors. The B&C article identifies but one: Jerry Perenchio, Univision Chairman and CEO. He donated $1 million to the Progress for America Voter Fund, a 527 running TV ads in support of Bush.

Hollywood is also well represented on both the hard and soft money contributor lists, principally on the Democratic side. For example, actor Dennis Hopper and his wife, Victoria, and Jeffrey and Marilyn Katzenberg, are listed as vice chairs of the John Kerry presidential campaign for raising $100,000 or more.

Jerry Seinfeld is on record as having put up $2,000 for the Kerry campaign and $5,000 for Senator Hillary Clinton's political action committee. His Seinfeld show co-creator, Larry David, dug deeper into his pockets and sent $180,000 in to support Kerry and various pro-Dem 527 organizations.

"Our view is, it's not fair," says Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch. "It's not right that a group can exist to collect these huge sums of money."

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VIACOM: PLAN, WHAT PLAN?

Media giant Viacom has been winging it all these years when it came to business planning, the company's two execs revealed last week, according to Broadcasting & Cable magazine columnist John Higgins.

In a moment of startling candor, says Higgins, the co-presidents and co-COOs of Viacom, Les Moonves and Tom Freston, told participants at the Goldman Sachs Communicopia media investment conference that the strategic plan they are developing for Viacom is the first ever for the company.

Moonves stopped in his tracks as he was leaving the conference when one incredulous investor shouted: "Les, you guys didn't have any strategic plan?"

He wheeled around: "What does it look like to you? These units weren't working together. No planning, no sharing."

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A PAIR OF SHORTS

BE THE FIRST ON YOUR BLOCK: Just in time for Christmas, CBS is offering a skull on a stand that kids can use to practice reconstructing the faces of crime victims, reports Broadcasting & Cable magazine. The CSI Forensic Facial Reconstruction Kit, based on the network's hit show, comes complete with molding clay, pins and other instruments so those on your gift list "ages 8 and up' can hone their pathology skills. A variety of other CSI-based "kits' for young crime fighters are expected to be rolled out before the holidays, for fingerprinting, casting tire tracks, blood analysis and even a kit that simulates DNA analysis, says B&C.

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A FLIP OF THE BIRD: An editorial in this week's Broadcasting & Cable magazine says that when Howard Stern last week told the FCC and his misguided radio foes to shove it and announced his deal with Sirius Satellite Radio it was "the flipping of the bird to sanctimonious regulators and wimpy radio execs who wanted to dethrone the King of All Media. They censored Stern-and drove him into a $500 million payday.' They also "weakened the [broadcast] radio business censors were trying to fix.'

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