The decision to purchase the rights was taken last year. "Then we thought again, " said the spokesman. He wouldn't say how much of your licence fee or tax euros went to the makers of Loose Change, though the spokesman said he'd be "very surprised" if it was as high as Euro10,000. In any case, the money was paid for a programme which at the moment RT� has no plans to transmit.

Unless. Oh, that's right, the RT� spokesperson tells Publius that the tranmission has not been cancelled but postponed, until a new, third version dealing with some of the "inaccuracies" in the "documentary" is reviewed for possible broadcast in September.

As of writing, RT� viewers were instead to cap an evening's viewing of Pat Rabbitte and the Iftas with a documentary about Liberia in the slot on RT� Two formerly held by Loose Change.

Victims of 9/11 were not available for comment.

WORST. MARKETING. IDEA. EVER.

STAYING with our terrorism as entertainment theme, the Turner Broadcasting System, owned by the company that also owns CNN, has agreed to pay $2m to Boston area authorities after the city went on high alert following what were described as suspicious packages were found late last month at strategic points around the city.

The packages turned out to be a 'guerilla' marketing campaign by agency Interference Inc for the Cartoon Network's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force".

Criminal charges are still outstanding against two men - Peter Berdovsky (27) and Sean Stevens (28) - who planted the circuit-boards with cartoon characters on them at hospitals, bridges and key motorway junctions.

We still think, though, that the two men are probably going to be punished enough for having to live down their post-arrest press conference, where the two men, one impressively dreadlocked, insisted they would only answer questions about "hair".

Victims of 9/11 were not available for comment.

UPC IRELAND GETS SMART TALK about someone who's been through the wars. UPC Ireland have hired Rhona Bradshaw to head up their residential marketing. Bradshaw's arrival coincided with the company, soon to be formerly known as NTL and Chorus, softening its plans to impose surcharges for late payments and payments not made by direct debit.

Bradshaw's previous gig? Head of marketing for Smart Telecom for three years. Which kind of sounds like she was let out early for good behaviour. We wish her well in her new post.

HUNTER BAGS A BLOCKBUSTER ADagency Hunter-RedCell has managed the impressive feat of grabbing the advertising account for Blockbuster - in the UK. The account, previously handled by London agency Doner Cardwell, will be managed out of Dublin and cover the television, radio, press and print ads for Blockbuster's 700 UK locations.

Hunter's Barry Kennedy points out that while it's not the first time creative work for another market has been driven out of Dublin, it's a good counter to the decisions of some multinationals to centralise work for markets including Ireland out of London. Well done, we say.

rdelevan@tribune. ie