This week brings still more examples of sports radio shows going to TV. In Chicago and several other cities, next Monday (Oct. 25) marks the debut of Dan Patrick's radio show going to the TV side by way of some Fox Sports regional networks and Comcast Sports regional networks.
In Chicago, this marks a move of Patrick's show off the radio and on to TV in perhaps the most significant move in the country. While it is true that Dan Patrick's radio show has been airing on 670 WSCR The Score since its start, the show has been airing on a severe tape delay. Airing the show from 1 to 4 AM and previewing games which have already been completed was never the best showcase for Patrick. Whether that was worth it just to be able to tell potential advertisers that the show airs in Chicago is up for debate. It's just that airing overnight after games were over has been a waste of time, and the better parts of Patrick's show never got a fair shake in the Chicago market.
Getting rid of the Dan Patrick Show means that WSCR The Score will be live and local 24 hours a day. Host Les Grobstein will no longer have a split show from 10 PM to 1 AM and then return from 4 until 5 AM, or need to host for 7 hours straight when there is no Patrick Show to air. Now, he settles into Midnight to 5 AM.
Starting Monday, the Dan Patrick Show will air live on Comcast SportsNet each weekday morning.
In Boston, the popular WEEI morning show, The Dennis and Callahan Show, will be simulcast on NESN, starting the week of November 15th, from 6 to 9 AM. What also makes this interesting is that The Dennis & Callahan Show has changed over the past couple of years and is not all sports. It will be interesting to see how some political cross-talk goes over (or doesn't) with the NESN all-sports audience, especially since NESN plans to air the show on its outlets beyond the immediate Boston area. On the other hand, it will be interesting to hear if the show transitions back more to sports due to the addition of the TV simulcast.
These 2 cities add to the existing radio shows on TV, which includes portions Mike Francesa's WFAN show airing in the NYC area on YES, among other examples. The most prominent example is Mike & Mike's ESPN Radio show airing on ESPN2 each morning.
From the TV point of view, I understand these moves since the production costs are very little to pick up an existing "radio" show compared with needing a studio, fresh talent, producers, and the like. This is their way of going with a familiar and established entity for their viewers.
As a radio guy, I don't like to see this at all. While radio people sit around trying to determine why the medium is gradually losing its audiences across the board, it is actions such as this one that answer their own question.
In Boston, Dennis & Callahan enjoys strong ratings, especially within its targeted demographic. They have been a morning drive fixture since being moved there in 1999. But starting next month, radio will not have this show exclusively. Did WEEI executives stop to wonder what happens if several people who have PPM's (the meters used to monitor listening for ratings) are no longer listening to WEEI and instead watch NESN each morning?
If the radio ratings drop, the show will not be considered as successful, WEEI loses revenue, and radio loses a portion of the audience it has to fight hard for.
It's just like some of the music stations which want you to pay to download the songs they play and offer podcasts on their web site. They look at it as additional revenue instead of how they are also giving people more reasons NOT to listen to their station.
Some of the regional TV sports networks also already do their own version of a radio show on TV. A prime example is Sports Time Ohio's "All Bets Are Off" with Bruce Drennan. Bruce sits in the STO studio and takes listener calls, only occasionally showing an interview. For 3 hours on weekday afternoons and then 2 hours most Sunday nights. This is one example of TV copying radio, but at least they are originating their own show.
If and as radio continues to offer less unique programming, the overall audience is not likely to grow, or even sustain current levels.
NEW YORK: One can't blame NBC-TV for pointing this out. Sunday Night Football (10/17) with the Indianapolis vs. Washington game more than doubled the overnight ratings of Fox's NLCS telecast of the Phillies and Giants. Their report claims this was the best NFL prime time overnights vs. a baseball league Championship Series since 1997. The football ratings were reportedly 10% better than last season's Week 6 telecast.
A check of the Top 10 metered markets from this game understandably includes Richmond and Norfolk in the Top 5, due to their proximity to Washington D.C. The most curious markets to appear in the Top 10 are Knoxville and Greensboro. The markets with baseball teams still alive in the post-season, New York, Dallas, San Francisco, and Philadelphia, did not crack the Top 10 Sunday Night Football markets.
MIAMI: No update yet as to how WBGG-FM is going to handle their contract conflict on October 31st. It seems the station has "priority team" agreements with both the NBA Heat and the NFL Dolphins regarding WBGG, and the Heat is taking legal action. The teams are both scheduled for 1 PM ET regular season games on Halloween. The Dolphins broadcasts also air on WINZ-AM. The Heat will be into their first regular season weekend with LeBron James and company. In addition, the Heat is reportedly upset that the Dolphins get a 2-hour pre-game block whereas Heat broadcasts have a 30-minute pre-game. However, the Dolphins play once per week compared with 3 or 4 games for the Heat.
St. LOUIS: One more chapter in the "why radio is losing its audience" derby. Even though the Cardinals dropped out of N.L. Central contention by September, their TV ratings, up about 19% from the previous season, led local ratings for all of MLB. In addition, they averaged higher TV ratings over the course of their season than any NBA or NHL team during the 2009-2010 seasons.
Not so coincidentally, the Cardinals will return to KMOX Radio for next season after another season on a signal-challenged AM station that barely covered the St. Louis metro. Let's see what happens to their ratings for next season when fans throughout the region can EASILY get the games on radio.
By the way, the Minnesota Twins local telecasts averaged the 2nd highest in local MLB telecast ratings this year, understandable given the team's A.L. Central championship and their new stadium. They also beat out every NBA and NHL local telecast from the prior seasons. The Red Sox had won this category for the six previous seasons, but suffered about a 38% ratings decrease for 2010 and did not make MLB's top 5 local telecasts rankings.
SAN FRANCISCO/OAKLAND: The Oakland A's had one of the biggest increases overall in their local telecast ratings compared with other teams with more than a 48% improvement for their Comcast SportsNet telecasts. However, they still wound up with the lowest local telecast ratings of the season.
GAINESVILLE: Glad to see that Renee Gork is back working again on sports radio. Gork was the reporter fired from an Arkansas station following an incident where she wore a U. of Florida hat to a U. of Arkansas press conference. Here's hoping she pursues legal action on that. Meanwhile, WRUF 850 has hired her to be a part of the University of Florida operated station. On one hand, that is just as insane. On the other hand, she has a job in sports radio, like she should.
MILWAUKEE: Challenges for local play-by-play voices. At press time (10/19), 40-year Brewers voice Bob Uecker was scheduled to have additional heart surgery to repair a tear from his prior heart valve replacement. The 75-year young Uecker missed much of the just concluded season when he had to have heart surgery in April. We most certainly hope he will "get up....get up....and get out" of the hospital as soon as possible.
Bucks radio voice Ted Davis went to Texas to help his ailing mother but is expected back prior to the end of the pre-season. TV voice Jim Paschke has filled in on at least one Bucks pre-season broadcast so far.
CLEVELAND: It's not just Milwaukee announcers. Sorry to report that Cavaliers voice Joe Tait, scheduled to retire after the coming season, was hospitalized on this past weekend due to chest pains. TV voice Fred McLeod filled in for Saturday's (10/16) pre-season game vs. Dallas.
PITTSBURGH: Stan Savran is back, and is now a part of the Steelers Radio Network. He will be heard during the pre-game, half time, and post-game shows. In addition, he will make weekly Steelers related appearances on the WDVE Morning Show, WXDX's Mark Madden Show, and "Tunch & Wolf" on Fox Sports 970.
PHILADELPHIA: Former Sixer Eric Snow made his debut last week (10/12) as analyst working with Marc Zumoff, becoming the 4th analyst in 4 seasons to do so on Comcast SportsNet. He replaces Ed Pinckney, who joined the Chicago Bulls as an Assistant Coach. Bob Salmi and Steve Mix handled the seasons prior to Pinckney.
DALLAS: While the Rangers battle to reach their first World Series, the team will have a new TV play-by-play voice for next season. The team is not renewing the contract of Josh Lewin after 9 seasons. This does not impact Lewin's other duties as play-by-play voice of the San Diego Chargers (radio) and baseball assignments for Fox TV. Tom Grieve continues as the team's TV analyst.
CINCINNATI: Xavier University's basketball team's success has carried over to the TV side. As of now, every game with the exception of the Paradise Jam tournament they are scheduled for will be televised. Fox Sports Ohio will air at least 9 games, CBS College Sports will show 5 games, and ESPN has 10 games scheduled. Brad Johansen and Steve Wolf will call the Fox Sports Ohio telecasts.
DAYTON: Last week's big area high school game between Wayne and Centerville had plenty of coverage. In addition to being televised nationally on ESPNU, WONE 980 broadcast the game as its Greater Western Ohio Conference Game of the Week, while WSWO 97.7 aired it along with all Wayne H.S. games, and WCWT 107.3 airs all of the Centerville games.
ALBANY: Sorry to learn of the passing of Bob McNamara, sportscaster in the market from 1966 into 2001, at the age of 76. He worked at WTEN-TV in 1966, then to WRGB in 1967 for 14 years before going to WNYT.
BANGOR: The Bangor Daily News reports that WZON The Sports Zone 620 will cut back its sports talk programming in favor of news/talk shows between now and the end of the year. Play-by-play is expected to continue, including high school football and hoops, Husson University games, and Red Sox baseball (for which it is under contract through the 2011 season).
TERRE HAUTE: Brazil Indiana's WSDM 92.7 has dropped its country rock music format and moved ESPN Radio from WSDX 1130. The AM signal suffered from being only 500 watts during the day and even less at night. This provides better coverage for ESPN Radio, also carried on WBOW 1300 in Terra Haute.
Showing posts with label bob uecker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bob uecker. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Broadcast Booth - July 28 update.....
All 1500 ESPN in the Twin Cities did was air a fascinating interview and generate some newsworthy quotes. Frankly, it's about time the sports "reporting" media made some news instead of spending endless hours touting rumors about trades and signings that fail to come to pass and acting as if they are "news" stories.
Timberwolves team President David Kahn went on the air last week and said that forward Michael Beasley "smoked too much marijuana", prompting a $50,000 fine against Kahn by the NBA.
The actual comment was, "He's a very young and immature kid who smoked too much marijuana and has told me that he's not smoking anymore, and I told him that I would trust him as long as that was the case."
Whether it was right or wrong for Kahn to make that comment is not the point. I can understand the NBA being concerned. However, the sports "reporting" media should be concerned about a $50,000 fine resulting from that comment.
Had Mr. Kahn's comment come during or within an NBA environment, such as a team or league press conference, I would understand this fine completely. However, Kahn's choice and willingness to go on a local sports talk show is and was not an NBA environment.
If Michael Beasley and/or his representatives felt the comment was not appropriate or not true, it should be their decision to pursue legal action. Such an action could include the radio station which broadcast the comment if the legal team so determines. As of this writing, I am not aware of any such action or even a complaint from Beasley, to whom the comments were associated with.
However, the NBA, by declaring this fine against a team representative for "outside" comments, is doing some harm to the very media which supports it, along with us fans.
Too many of the sports radio stations emphasize the local callers giving their often uninformed opinions about the teams and players way too much as it is. Many sports fans listen to get information about the teams and players and to learn more.
I'm afraid that as word of this fine gets out, that more of the players, owners, and team management members will start to think twice before going on a live radio or TV interview. Now that he has been fined $50,000, do you think Mr. Kahn will EVER do another live media interview he doesn't have to?
Guess what. As players and team officials stop doing live interviews, the result will be these sports stations having no choice but to put boring and clueless fans on the air instead of the participants.
Certainly I can understand the NBA wanting to reprimand a team executive, especially an owner, for the comment. It should have been done in private, or with only a public apology and no consequences. Instead, the NBA could well be cutting off one of its best forms of publicity around the nation.
Yet, that is not all that should have been done. Stations such as 1500 ESPN and others like it should be expressing their anger over this fine. This will make it more of a challenge to bring the fans live interviews, since players and team execs will have to be fearful of making a comment, outside of a team or league setting, that could take money out of their pocket.
Now the NBA has $50,000 extra, and the millions of listeners to sports radio station have "Joe from the south side to talk about whether Michael Beasley should be traded". That is not the fault of Mr. Kahn. While the fans will really be the ones to suffer the consequences.
This all comes on top of the increased insanity of sports stations featuring the callers instead of information and interviews. Now this trend continues to spread in baseball as well. It has been bad enough that WSCR The Score has been doing what they call "interactive" Chicago White Sox broadcasts during the past couple of spring trainings. The station actually stops doing play-by-play in the middle of some exhibition broadcasts to instead let the game announcers take calls from the fans. As if listeners would rather hear some fan talking about who should make the team instead of how the specific players are performing at that very moment?
Last week WEEI Boston suddenly restructured their Red Sox pre-game programming to enable John Ryder to take more calls from fans. The Terry Francona Show and a player interview segment continue to air, but now are treated like a throw-in. Station officials are bent on continuing this "at least" through this season. Pardon me, but I thought the other 20 hours out of the day were already more than enough to hear the same fans calling in with the same complaints about "last night's game". Now fans have to wait to hear what the team's manager has to say? Worse yet, there are rumblings that WEEI might also subject Celtics fans to this when their broadcasts start up again in October.
If we must be subjected to fan comment overload, at least KTRB, the flagship station of the Oakland A's, had a better idea. Because of its syndicated and brokered time programming commitments, the A's games often create havoc on the program lineup. Last Wednesday (7/21), the A's victory over the Red Sox ran a bit late. As a result, Chris Townsend was on the air with the post-game show and took phone calls from fans for a longer than usual period. As in 4 hours. The game ended around 3:30 PM, and Townsend's post-game show was on the air all the way until 7:30 PM. Since that was a later extension of the post-game programming, I have no problem with that. It pre-empted other station programming, but, significantly, not any of the player or manager interviews that provide fans with information they care to hear.
Meanwhile, Fox Sports Radio will begin syndication of an Indianapolis based sports show each Saturday, beginning this week. The "Zakk and Jack Show" features host Zakk Tyler (former WLUP Chicago music host and later managing editor of an Indianapolis based sports web site) and former NFL QB Jack Trudeau will air on Fox stations including WNDE Indianapolis.
While it lacks the thunder of the recent ACC and Big 12 Conference TV announcements, Conference USA has extended its partnership with CBS College Sports Network. Although this channel only appears primarily on extended cable and satellite packages around the country, this deal includes football and basketball through 2016.
CHICAGO: Corey McPherrin becomes the latest TV sports anchor to jump over the news side. As of next week, he will co-host WFLD TV's expanded morning news show, "Good Day Chicago" along with Anna Davlantes. McPherrin has done sports at WFLD and before that WBBM-TV for many years. Jill Carlson will take over as lead sportscaster on the station's weeknight newscasts.
MILWAUKEE: It's as though baseball season returned for Brewers fans with the return to the booth last Friday (7/23) of Bob Uecker following a successful recovery from heart surgery. It may not be a coincidence that the always strong ratings for flagship station WTMJ 620 took a drop during the evening daypart during his abscence.
On the TV side, Fox Sports Wisconsin is cooperating with the Brewers with a special telecast of the Brewers vs. Arizona game on August 10. The entire game telecast will not have commercials, instead focusing on a live charity auction to benefit the Brewers Community Foundation. Some amazing bid packages are planned, including a pitching clinic with Trevor Hoffman and pitching coach Rick Peterson. (As an aside, I'd have to think a "Father of the Year" Award might as well be included in that package.)
DENVER: The sports radio competition is now a mile high as of this week. KCKK 1510 Mile High Sports Radio started its revised lineup this week. This includes Eric Goodman and columnist Mark Kiszla in morning drive, Rico & Romano late mornings, and Mark McIntosh and Jimmy Doogan from 3 to 6 PM.
KCUV The Ticket has moved from 102.3 to 87.7 FM as of this week but has not made any noticeable schedule changes. Vic Lombardi and Gary Miller continue in morning drive, and the afternoon show adds a third co-host and is now with Shapiro, Goins, and JoJo. The Ticket will air one of the national NFL games packages this season.
KKFN 104.3 The Fan had already announced the addition of former Broncos lineman Mark Schlereth to its afternoon drive show starting next week (Aug. 2).
KPEN 1600 continues with the same lineup, including Irv and Joe in the afternoon.
WASHINGTON D.C.: The start of NFL training camps is especially important to Redskins fans, and one of the big "transactions" for them comes in the form of Redskins beat reporter Chris Russell. ESPN 980 has hired Russell away from rival 106.7 The Fan as of this week.
Russell will be a regular on the afternoon Sports Reporters Show with Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin. His expanded role includes co-hosting the halftime show on the game radio broadcasts during the season. In addition, he will be the sideline reporter for the local pre-season telecasts.
The Fan is expected to name its own Redskins beat reporter any minute now, but had not as of press time.
HOUSTON: KTRK Channel 13 will be making good use of its additional digital channel for NASCAR fans on August 21st. The Sprint Cup race telecast moves to Channel 13.2 due to its telecast of the Texans vs. New Orleans pre-season game.
KTBU Channel 55 will again carry SEC a group of selected SEC football games this fall, with the broadcast crew of Dave Neal and Andre Ware.
SEATTLE: Bob Rondeau will have a new analyst for his radio broadcasts of University of Washington football this season, as he begins his 31st season of calling the games. Former UW and NFL QB Damon Huard joins the crew, replacing Chuck Nelson in the role that Nelson held for 17 seasons. KJR 950 continues its 11-hour game day radio coverage, with game coverage to be streamed on GoHuskies.com.
KANSAS CITY: Speaking of NFL camps opening, WHB 810 Sports Radio made Tuesday (July 27) a full day of Chiefs coverage going live from training camp for most of the day. Play-by-play voice Mitch Hothus co-hosted in morning drive and provided interviews throughout the day.
SALT LAKE: ESPN 700 host Bill Riley has been named to return to handling play-by-play of University of Utah football and basketball for the coming seasons after a 3-year abscence from the booth. He replaces Mike Lageschulte, who will continue to work for the school's Athletic Department. Riley will also handle both head coach radio shows each week in season.
TOLEDO: Former University of Toledo head coach Tom Amstutz will join the school's radio crew and be the analyst this season for play-by-play voice Mark Beier, starting with the Sept. 3 game vs. Arizona. If only we knew where to find him. The official Press Release issued by the school with this announcement failed to include mention of a radio station airing the games, nor whether or not the broadcasts will stream. Ooops.
Timberwolves team President David Kahn went on the air last week and said that forward Michael Beasley "smoked too much marijuana", prompting a $50,000 fine against Kahn by the NBA.
The actual comment was, "He's a very young and immature kid who smoked too much marijuana and has told me that he's not smoking anymore, and I told him that I would trust him as long as that was the case."
Whether it was right or wrong for Kahn to make that comment is not the point. I can understand the NBA being concerned. However, the sports "reporting" media should be concerned about a $50,000 fine resulting from that comment.
Had Mr. Kahn's comment come during or within an NBA environment, such as a team or league press conference, I would understand this fine completely. However, Kahn's choice and willingness to go on a local sports talk show is and was not an NBA environment.
If Michael Beasley and/or his representatives felt the comment was not appropriate or not true, it should be their decision to pursue legal action. Such an action could include the radio station which broadcast the comment if the legal team so determines. As of this writing, I am not aware of any such action or even a complaint from Beasley, to whom the comments were associated with.
However, the NBA, by declaring this fine against a team representative for "outside" comments, is doing some harm to the very media which supports it, along with us fans.
Too many of the sports radio stations emphasize the local callers giving their often uninformed opinions about the teams and players way too much as it is. Many sports fans listen to get information about the teams and players and to learn more.
I'm afraid that as word of this fine gets out, that more of the players, owners, and team management members will start to think twice before going on a live radio or TV interview. Now that he has been fined $50,000, do you think Mr. Kahn will EVER do another live media interview he doesn't have to?
Guess what. As players and team officials stop doing live interviews, the result will be these sports stations having no choice but to put boring and clueless fans on the air instead of the participants.
Certainly I can understand the NBA wanting to reprimand a team executive, especially an owner, for the comment. It should have been done in private, or with only a public apology and no consequences. Instead, the NBA could well be cutting off one of its best forms of publicity around the nation.
Yet, that is not all that should have been done. Stations such as 1500 ESPN and others like it should be expressing their anger over this fine. This will make it more of a challenge to bring the fans live interviews, since players and team execs will have to be fearful of making a comment, outside of a team or league setting, that could take money out of their pocket.
Now the NBA has $50,000 extra, and the millions of listeners to sports radio station have "Joe from the south side to talk about whether Michael Beasley should be traded". That is not the fault of Mr. Kahn. While the fans will really be the ones to suffer the consequences.
This all comes on top of the increased insanity of sports stations featuring the callers instead of information and interviews. Now this trend continues to spread in baseball as well. It has been bad enough that WSCR The Score has been doing what they call "interactive" Chicago White Sox broadcasts during the past couple of spring trainings. The station actually stops doing play-by-play in the middle of some exhibition broadcasts to instead let the game announcers take calls from the fans. As if listeners would rather hear some fan talking about who should make the team instead of how the specific players are performing at that very moment?
Last week WEEI Boston suddenly restructured their Red Sox pre-game programming to enable John Ryder to take more calls from fans. The Terry Francona Show and a player interview segment continue to air, but now are treated like a throw-in. Station officials are bent on continuing this "at least" through this season. Pardon me, but I thought the other 20 hours out of the day were already more than enough to hear the same fans calling in with the same complaints about "last night's game". Now fans have to wait to hear what the team's manager has to say? Worse yet, there are rumblings that WEEI might also subject Celtics fans to this when their broadcasts start up again in October.
If we must be subjected to fan comment overload, at least KTRB, the flagship station of the Oakland A's, had a better idea. Because of its syndicated and brokered time programming commitments, the A's games often create havoc on the program lineup. Last Wednesday (7/21), the A's victory over the Red Sox ran a bit late. As a result, Chris Townsend was on the air with the post-game show and took phone calls from fans for a longer than usual period. As in 4 hours. The game ended around 3:30 PM, and Townsend's post-game show was on the air all the way until 7:30 PM. Since that was a later extension of the post-game programming, I have no problem with that. It pre-empted other station programming, but, significantly, not any of the player or manager interviews that provide fans with information they care to hear.
Meanwhile, Fox Sports Radio will begin syndication of an Indianapolis based sports show each Saturday, beginning this week. The "Zakk and Jack Show" features host Zakk Tyler (former WLUP Chicago music host and later managing editor of an Indianapolis based sports web site) and former NFL QB Jack Trudeau will air on Fox stations including WNDE Indianapolis.
While it lacks the thunder of the recent ACC and Big 12 Conference TV announcements, Conference USA has extended its partnership with CBS College Sports Network. Although this channel only appears primarily on extended cable and satellite packages around the country, this deal includes football and basketball through 2016.
CHICAGO: Corey McPherrin becomes the latest TV sports anchor to jump over the news side. As of next week, he will co-host WFLD TV's expanded morning news show, "Good Day Chicago" along with Anna Davlantes. McPherrin has done sports at WFLD and before that WBBM-TV for many years. Jill Carlson will take over as lead sportscaster on the station's weeknight newscasts.
MILWAUKEE: It's as though baseball season returned for Brewers fans with the return to the booth last Friday (7/23) of Bob Uecker following a successful recovery from heart surgery. It may not be a coincidence that the always strong ratings for flagship station WTMJ 620 took a drop during the evening daypart during his abscence.
On the TV side, Fox Sports Wisconsin is cooperating with the Brewers with a special telecast of the Brewers vs. Arizona game on August 10. The entire game telecast will not have commercials, instead focusing on a live charity auction to benefit the Brewers Community Foundation. Some amazing bid packages are planned, including a pitching clinic with Trevor Hoffman and pitching coach Rick Peterson. (As an aside, I'd have to think a "Father of the Year" Award might as well be included in that package.)
DENVER: The sports radio competition is now a mile high as of this week. KCKK 1510 Mile High Sports Radio started its revised lineup this week. This includes Eric Goodman and columnist Mark Kiszla in morning drive, Rico & Romano late mornings, and Mark McIntosh and Jimmy Doogan from 3 to 6 PM.
KCUV The Ticket has moved from 102.3 to 87.7 FM as of this week but has not made any noticeable schedule changes. Vic Lombardi and Gary Miller continue in morning drive, and the afternoon show adds a third co-host and is now with Shapiro, Goins, and JoJo. The Ticket will air one of the national NFL games packages this season.
KKFN 104.3 The Fan had already announced the addition of former Broncos lineman Mark Schlereth to its afternoon drive show starting next week (Aug. 2).
KPEN 1600 continues with the same lineup, including Irv and Joe in the afternoon.
WASHINGTON D.C.: The start of NFL training camps is especially important to Redskins fans, and one of the big "transactions" for them comes in the form of Redskins beat reporter Chris Russell. ESPN 980 has hired Russell away from rival 106.7 The Fan as of this week.
Russell will be a regular on the afternoon Sports Reporters Show with Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin. His expanded role includes co-hosting the halftime show on the game radio broadcasts during the season. In addition, he will be the sideline reporter for the local pre-season telecasts.
The Fan is expected to name its own Redskins beat reporter any minute now, but had not as of press time.
HOUSTON: KTRK Channel 13 will be making good use of its additional digital channel for NASCAR fans on August 21st. The Sprint Cup race telecast moves to Channel 13.2 due to its telecast of the Texans vs. New Orleans pre-season game.
KTBU Channel 55 will again carry SEC a group of selected SEC football games this fall, with the broadcast crew of Dave Neal and Andre Ware.
SEATTLE: Bob Rondeau will have a new analyst for his radio broadcasts of University of Washington football this season, as he begins his 31st season of calling the games. Former UW and NFL QB Damon Huard joins the crew, replacing Chuck Nelson in the role that Nelson held for 17 seasons. KJR 950 continues its 11-hour game day radio coverage, with game coverage to be streamed on GoHuskies.com.
KANSAS CITY: Speaking of NFL camps opening, WHB 810 Sports Radio made Tuesday (July 27) a full day of Chiefs coverage going live from training camp for most of the day. Play-by-play voice Mitch Hothus co-hosted in morning drive and provided interviews throughout the day.
SALT LAKE: ESPN 700 host Bill Riley has been named to return to handling play-by-play of University of Utah football and basketball for the coming seasons after a 3-year abscence from the booth. He replaces Mike Lageschulte, who will continue to work for the school's Athletic Department. Riley will also handle both head coach radio shows each week in season.
TOLEDO: Former University of Toledo head coach Tom Amstutz will join the school's radio crew and be the analyst this season for play-by-play voice Mark Beier, starting with the Sept. 3 game vs. Arizona. If only we knew where to find him. The official Press Release issued by the school with this announcement failed to include mention of a radio station airing the games, nor whether or not the broadcasts will stream. Ooops.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The Broadcast Booth - April 28 update
Those outside of the media often joke that "Anybody can host a sports show". Come to think of it, not all of them are joking. During all my years of sportscasting and teaching, I always found media outlets with an abundance of applicants for sports positions.
Imagine my shock when I saw a Baltimore outlet actually advertising for a sports host:
https://sjobs.brassring.com/EN/ASP/TG/cim_jobdetail.asp?jobId=172376&partnerid=25084&siteid=5132&type=search&JobReqLang=1
(This was a sports host position open as of press time.)
One would think that a major league city (which I consider any city with at least one pro sports team to be) would go along with reviewing tons of applicants. The station should know what sound it wants. Maybe even what person or persons it wants. I know of people in the industry who were hired as a result of being monitored over the air on another station or network and approached. I have had that happen to me a couple of times. With many markets now having 2 or more sports stations, I would like to think that management knows how it wants the station to sound and have an idea of personnel that would make a good fit.
Not only are game broadcasts and telecasts for most pro sports rising big time, but even a "non-game" scored well. The NFL Draft TV ratings soared for its first time as a 3 day event, even with both ESPN and NFL Network televising separately. The ratings could have been even better were it not for prior trades. The Chicago market is a huge NFL ratings market when it comes to the Bears. Due to trades, the Bears did not have a first or second round pick this year. If they had their mid-first round pick, the audience from the Chicago area would have kicked the overall ratings up even more. Again, this was not even a game. No betting lines, and the fantasy leagues were not impacted.
From a media standpoint, this was a nice innovation compared with the previous all day Saturday with hours of continued coverage. This plan makes it better for the fans to follow the draft.
This plan will undoubtedly be retained for next year because of the response of the fans. Yet, from a football point of view, I'd like to see one aspect addressed. Is it fair for the first 3 or 4 teams picking in Round 2 to have all day to debate and research their picks? Not compared with the 5 minutes max they have had over the years gone by.
Normally the Sports Emmy Awards are not what I call "stop the presses" news. This year it is different. MLB Network won 4 of them, and this as they are still in only their 2nd year of existence. If there was a category for "Most Incredible Innovations in Sports Programming" they would have won that as well.
Great to see the recognition for the outstanding work they have done and continue to do. MLB Tonight, understandably, received 3 of their awards, while Studio 42 host Bob Costas won the "Outstanding Sports Personality - Studio Host" Award. Added congrats to Bob, since that is his personal 20th Emmy.
It took rain to stop a strange ESPN programming streak. Had Monday night's (April 26) Dodgers at Mets telecast not been rained out, it would have been the 4th consecutive National League telecast via the ESPN Networks. If this were September and that's where the only races were, I could understand. We need more balance among the national games.
Speaking of network scheduling, no matter what Fox Network thinks, good for NBC to finally schedule a Sunday Night Football telecast that will go against a World Series game. The reason the NFL went to 17 weeks for 16 game seasons was because of television, yet the NFL has been conceeding to MLB for the past few years.
But the most interesting part of this story will come up in October. NBC is scheduled to show Pittsburgh vs. New Orleans for this Week 7 telecast. If the recent suspension of Ben Roethlisberger is upheld for the entire 6 games, that night would likely be his return to action. A sure ratings grabber. Since the NFL is all about TV ratings and is now bucking a World Series telecast, I wonder how likely the NFL would be to reduce the suspension and not have him return in prime time against the World Series.
Radio ratings for MLB broadcasts continue on the upswing. Three more markets added to the People Meters all showed noteworth local radio audience increases during the new season's first 2 weeks. It's even more interesting when you realize that Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Kansas City each have teams which are not likely to be contenders this season. The Reds' opening day radio broadcast averaged better than a 51 share among men 25-54 on April 5th.
ESPN and the Big Ten Network are already lining up Big Ten football telecasts for next season, and already there is an Ohio State flavor. The Buckeyes season opener on Thursday Sept. 2 vs. Marshall will be shown on BTN. ESPN has scheduled their first ever meeting against Miami for Sept. 11th. ESPN or ABC will show conference games on Oct. 16 at Wisconsin and Oct. 30 at Minnesota.
ABC or ESPN will also have Michigan State vs. Notre Dame on Sept. 18th in prime time, Iowa vs. Penn State on Oct. 2, and Michigan at Penn State on October 30th.
As streaming of games becomes more popular, Network1 Sports continues to add high school and small college games around the country. Maybe some more "sleepers" will be discovered for the pro drafts this way. You can see a list of the day's scheduled steams at:
http://www.network1sports.com/todaysbroadcasts.asp
MILWAUKEE: We all wish Bob Uecker a speedy recovery from his pending heart surgery and hope he beats the "10 to 12 weeks" estimate for his return to the Brewers broadcast booth, where he began 40 seasons ago.
Davey Nelson will move over from the TV booth to provide color on WTMJ Radio, with Cory Provus handling extensive play-by-play. The guess from here is that Wayne Laravee will take over during the interim, which would likely end around the time the Packers' training camp begins. Laravee, voice of the Packers and Big Ten football, would be an ideal fit because of his schedule. Laravee did Chicago Cubs TV play-by-play in the 90's.
LOS ANGELES: Sports radio continues its growth as the latest monthly ratings reflect. KSPN 710 and KLAC 570 combined for a 1.2 share increase in men 25-54, with KSPN showing the larger increase.
Joe McDonnell, formerly of the McDonnell Douglas Show and other sports hosting gigs, is now doing the morning sports updates on KNX NewsRadio 1070.
DETROIT: Still another example of the growth of sports radio. WXYT The Ticket again increased its overall audience share in the latest monthly ratings, surging to the #1 position in the 25-54 age group. While the Red Wings continue in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the Tigers expect to contend, this also took place while the Pistons were finishing another disappointing season.
MIAMI: In addition to the Dolphins Radio Network changing for the coming season, now a multi-year deal for Spanish broadcasts has een announced. WQBA-AM will carry all pre-season and regular season games, complete with a 2-hour pre-game show and a 1-hour wrapup. Plans are underway for a 2-hour weekday show focused on the team.
BOSTON: NESN's Heidi Watney has returned to the network after missing about 2 weeks due to a concussion.
Word is that Boston College may be among the schools having one play-by-play voice for both football and basketball. Football voice Jon Meterparel could be replacing Ted Sarandis on basketball broadcasts starting in the fall.
DALLAS: While many of us consider the concerns about what athletes and media members post on Twitter to be of little significance, The Ticket 1310 had cause to make it grounds for a termination. Former MLB player Mike Bacsik, who was both a host and producer for the station, was let go following a racist tweet resulting from a Mavericks vs. Spurs NBA Playoff game. Adding to the mix was the reported admission by Bacsik that he was "drunk at a bar". This instance was much different from others who merely express a harmless opinion, agreed with or not.
WASHINGTON D.C.: While the NHL Capitals being taken to a 7th game by Montreal in the opening round of the playoffs was surprising, so was Comcast SportsNet reporting record ratings for its coverage. The Game 6 telecast from Monday (April 26) was the highest rated post-season game in the Network's history. (Game 7 numbers were not available at press time.)
TAMPA: 1010 AM has a new local show from Noon to 3 to replace "The Grind". Former Buccaneers QB Shaun King, who also played high school football in St. Pete, has been hired as co-host along with Toby David. The show is being called the "King David Show". Got to wonder if it will get a "royal" welcome in the ratings.
SYRACUSE: The AAA Syracuse Chiefs baseball team continues to celebrate 50 years of local ownership, and this Friday (April 30) they plan to celebrate with one of their prior broadcast legends on hand. Sean McDonough will join Jason Benetti on the WHEN 620 broadcast. McDonough called Chiefs games in 1982, 1983, and 1984.
Imagine my shock when I saw a Baltimore outlet actually advertising for a sports host:
https://sjobs.brassring.com/EN/ASP/TG/cim_jobdetail.asp?jobId=172376&partnerid=25084&siteid=5132&type=search&JobReqLang=1
(This was a sports host position open as of press time.)
One would think that a major league city (which I consider any city with at least one pro sports team to be) would go along with reviewing tons of applicants. The station should know what sound it wants. Maybe even what person or persons it wants. I know of people in the industry who were hired as a result of being monitored over the air on another station or network and approached. I have had that happen to me a couple of times. With many markets now having 2 or more sports stations, I would like to think that management knows how it wants the station to sound and have an idea of personnel that would make a good fit.
Not only are game broadcasts and telecasts for most pro sports rising big time, but even a "non-game" scored well. The NFL Draft TV ratings soared for its first time as a 3 day event, even with both ESPN and NFL Network televising separately. The ratings could have been even better were it not for prior trades. The Chicago market is a huge NFL ratings market when it comes to the Bears. Due to trades, the Bears did not have a first or second round pick this year. If they had their mid-first round pick, the audience from the Chicago area would have kicked the overall ratings up even more. Again, this was not even a game. No betting lines, and the fantasy leagues were not impacted.
From a media standpoint, this was a nice innovation compared with the previous all day Saturday with hours of continued coverage. This plan makes it better for the fans to follow the draft.
This plan will undoubtedly be retained for next year because of the response of the fans. Yet, from a football point of view, I'd like to see one aspect addressed. Is it fair for the first 3 or 4 teams picking in Round 2 to have all day to debate and research their picks? Not compared with the 5 minutes max they have had over the years gone by.
Normally the Sports Emmy Awards are not what I call "stop the presses" news. This year it is different. MLB Network won 4 of them, and this as they are still in only their 2nd year of existence. If there was a category for "Most Incredible Innovations in Sports Programming" they would have won that as well.
Great to see the recognition for the outstanding work they have done and continue to do. MLB Tonight, understandably, received 3 of their awards, while Studio 42 host Bob Costas won the "Outstanding Sports Personality - Studio Host" Award. Added congrats to Bob, since that is his personal 20th Emmy.
It took rain to stop a strange ESPN programming streak. Had Monday night's (April 26) Dodgers at Mets telecast not been rained out, it would have been the 4th consecutive National League telecast via the ESPN Networks. If this were September and that's where the only races were, I could understand. We need more balance among the national games.
Speaking of network scheduling, no matter what Fox Network thinks, good for NBC to finally schedule a Sunday Night Football telecast that will go against a World Series game. The reason the NFL went to 17 weeks for 16 game seasons was because of television, yet the NFL has been conceeding to MLB for the past few years.
But the most interesting part of this story will come up in October. NBC is scheduled to show Pittsburgh vs. New Orleans for this Week 7 telecast. If the recent suspension of Ben Roethlisberger is upheld for the entire 6 games, that night would likely be his return to action. A sure ratings grabber. Since the NFL is all about TV ratings and is now bucking a World Series telecast, I wonder how likely the NFL would be to reduce the suspension and not have him return in prime time against the World Series.
Radio ratings for MLB broadcasts continue on the upswing. Three more markets added to the People Meters all showed noteworth local radio audience increases during the new season's first 2 weeks. It's even more interesting when you realize that Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Kansas City each have teams which are not likely to be contenders this season. The Reds' opening day radio broadcast averaged better than a 51 share among men 25-54 on April 5th.
ESPN and the Big Ten Network are already lining up Big Ten football telecasts for next season, and already there is an Ohio State flavor. The Buckeyes season opener on Thursday Sept. 2 vs. Marshall will be shown on BTN. ESPN has scheduled their first ever meeting against Miami for Sept. 11th. ESPN or ABC will show conference games on Oct. 16 at Wisconsin and Oct. 30 at Minnesota.
ABC or ESPN will also have Michigan State vs. Notre Dame on Sept. 18th in prime time, Iowa vs. Penn State on Oct. 2, and Michigan at Penn State on October 30th.
As streaming of games becomes more popular, Network1 Sports continues to add high school and small college games around the country. Maybe some more "sleepers" will be discovered for the pro drafts this way. You can see a list of the day's scheduled steams at:
http://www.network1sports.com/todaysbroadcasts.asp
MILWAUKEE: We all wish Bob Uecker a speedy recovery from his pending heart surgery and hope he beats the "10 to 12 weeks" estimate for his return to the Brewers broadcast booth, where he began 40 seasons ago.
Davey Nelson will move over from the TV booth to provide color on WTMJ Radio, with Cory Provus handling extensive play-by-play. The guess from here is that Wayne Laravee will take over during the interim, which would likely end around the time the Packers' training camp begins. Laravee, voice of the Packers and Big Ten football, would be an ideal fit because of his schedule. Laravee did Chicago Cubs TV play-by-play in the 90's.
LOS ANGELES: Sports radio continues its growth as the latest monthly ratings reflect. KSPN 710 and KLAC 570 combined for a 1.2 share increase in men 25-54, with KSPN showing the larger increase.
Joe McDonnell, formerly of the McDonnell Douglas Show and other sports hosting gigs, is now doing the morning sports updates on KNX NewsRadio 1070.
DETROIT: Still another example of the growth of sports radio. WXYT The Ticket again increased its overall audience share in the latest monthly ratings, surging to the #1 position in the 25-54 age group. While the Red Wings continue in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the Tigers expect to contend, this also took place while the Pistons were finishing another disappointing season.
MIAMI: In addition to the Dolphins Radio Network changing for the coming season, now a multi-year deal for Spanish broadcasts has een announced. WQBA-AM will carry all pre-season and regular season games, complete with a 2-hour pre-game show and a 1-hour wrapup. Plans are underway for a 2-hour weekday show focused on the team.
BOSTON: NESN's Heidi Watney has returned to the network after missing about 2 weeks due to a concussion.
Word is that Boston College may be among the schools having one play-by-play voice for both football and basketball. Football voice Jon Meterparel could be replacing Ted Sarandis on basketball broadcasts starting in the fall.
DALLAS: While many of us consider the concerns about what athletes and media members post on Twitter to be of little significance, The Ticket 1310 had cause to make it grounds for a termination. Former MLB player Mike Bacsik, who was both a host and producer for the station, was let go following a racist tweet resulting from a Mavericks vs. Spurs NBA Playoff game. Adding to the mix was the reported admission by Bacsik that he was "drunk at a bar". This instance was much different from others who merely express a harmless opinion, agreed with or not.
WASHINGTON D.C.: While the NHL Capitals being taken to a 7th game by Montreal in the opening round of the playoffs was surprising, so was Comcast SportsNet reporting record ratings for its coverage. The Game 6 telecast from Monday (April 26) was the highest rated post-season game in the Network's history. (Game 7 numbers were not available at press time.)
TAMPA: 1010 AM has a new local show from Noon to 3 to replace "The Grind". Former Buccaneers QB Shaun King, who also played high school football in St. Pete, has been hired as co-host along with Toby David. The show is being called the "King David Show". Got to wonder if it will get a "royal" welcome in the ratings.
SYRACUSE: The AAA Syracuse Chiefs baseball team continues to celebrate 50 years of local ownership, and this Friday (April 30) they plan to celebrate with one of their prior broadcast legends on hand. Sean McDonough will join Jason Benetti on the WHEN 620 broadcast. McDonough called Chiefs games in 1982, 1983, and 1984.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Sports Media Update - February 18th..............
While too many sportscasts focus on sports news other than the games themselves being played, now we have an overlooked story about basketball games which may not be able to be broadcast in the interest of selling tickets.
The nomination for the "Say what?" Award of the month goes to the promoters of a pair of Kentucky regional high school basketball tournaments coming up in March. That state's 9th and 10th Region Tournaments will be played at the Bank of Kentucky Center. Yet, arena officials have announced that unless specific games are sold out at least one week prior to being played, there can be no live broadcasts of the games. Not even radio or internet.
The only "exception" would be if a school located more than 30 miles away from the arena is playing. But there is a catch. No teams from the Northern Kentucky Athletic Conference are located more than 30 miles from the 9,400-seat arena.
Let's get this straight. An arena sponsored by a local bank for the benefit of added publicity doesn't want one of its biggest events on radio, TV, or even on the internet. I have made a few inquiries and thus far haven't found out about any local radio stations which are even talking about this, let alone trying to broadcast the games.
As I have commented several times in the past, a high school tournament is the type of event that "should" be on HD Radio and might help to make HD Radio viable after all. News and sports stations could use the secondary and perhaps thirdary channels to broadcast and then replay important high school games.
It gives the people who can't get to the games, such as grandparents and shift workers, the chance to hear a loved one and/or the local school in action. The family of the kid who has the big game or makes the winning shot would want to listen to and record the replay as a keepsake.
Local advertisers would know the small but targeted audience they are reaching.
But the radio stations would rather put on "album b-sides of the 80's" or some format that doesn't cost anything and the people forget about. And now, to top it off, we have a local bank behind preventing local high school tournament games from being broadcast. But where is the Cincinnati media on this one?
To this point, as far as I know, only the Kentucky Enquirer (part of the Cincinnati Enquirer) newspaper and web site have picked up on this story.
KR Sports has handled broadcasting the 9th Region tourney over the years. This new restriction probably means that Kevin Rengering and Randy Wilson will miss doing these broadcasts for first time since 1984.
The arena and promoters "defend" this by saying that a specific tournament game which sells out at least one week in advance could then be broadcast. But this isn't like the NFL where a local TV station buys remaining tickets to be able to have the local telecast and generate the ad revenue. This could be thousands of tickets for each of several games. Since the teams in the games generally aren't known more than a week ahead of time (and don't think that is a coincidence either), a TV or radio station buying tickets early could then be shutting out fans of one or both participating schools.
Meanwhile, elsewhere around Kentucky, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association enables a participating high school to select or allow a broadcast outlet for its games, at a cost of $350 for the radio rights.
If the Bank and the arena are that worried about not selling enough tickets, then don't host the games. But if they insist on bringing greed into high school sports, this is a different story. One that merits additional and immediate attention.
But I'm afraid that with the state of radio management being where it is today, this will go untouched. If I were in a position to do something about this, I would ask a competing bank or S & L to purchase all remaining tickets, give them the value of that purchase in air time, and have that competing bank sponsor the broadcasts after giving away the tickets at their branches nearest the participating schools.
The sponsoring bank generates walk-in traffic from the schools and positive publicity. The radio station has provided a unique opportunity for the bank to deliver its message. The community would be properly served with coverage of its local high school tournament.
And that radio station would perform a positive local innovation. If not, what kind of precedent could this set?
LOS ANGELES - As we suspected last week, the Angels have followed the Texas Rangers into the idea of splitting their radio coverage, as if fans will remember that different stations carry the weekend games than during the week. KFWB 980 will be airing 110 of the Angels regular season games starting in April. KLAA 830 (owned by Angels owner Arte Moreno) will only carry the weekend games.
However inconsistent, this marks a return of baseball to KFWB which was the Dodgers flagship station from 2003 through 2007. The broadcast team stays the same, with Rory Markas and Steve Physioc on play-by-play and Rex Hudler on color, as well as Terry Smith.
As a result, Angels and Rangers fans now have to find out where to listen to the games instead of having one station all the time. This, after trying to find out if that night's game is on over-the-air TV, regional cable (or an overflow channel when conflicts with other teams), ESPN, or Fox-TV. These teams could have a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday series with 3 TV channels and 2 radio stations involved. This helps the fans how?
MILWAUKEE - Cory Provus has left the Chicago Cubs radio booth to become the #2 broadcaster of the division rival Milwaukee Brewers starting immediately. Provus will handle radio play-by-play of the middle 3 innings and pre and post-game shows, with ageless Bob Uecker handling most of the play-by-play.
No replacement named yet for WGN Radio and the Cubs broadcast booth yet, which is only for handling one inning each game to relieve Pat Hughes. Provus is another Syracuse University graduate, coming from the school which has produced Bob Costas, Marv Albert, and Dick Stockton, among others.
CHICAGO - Congrats to Kip Lewis, the son of former New York Jets defensive back and NFL assistant coach Sherman Lewis, has been hired by Comcast SportsNet Chicago. His reporter and anchor duties will begin on March 2nd. Lewis was a sports anchor for WRTV-TV Indianapolis, and is best known for a weekend sports stint at WPIX-TV New York in 2004 and '05.
DENVER - The Rockies TV coverage stands to have improved pre and post-game programming. Fox Sports Rocky Mountain no longer has local studios, and as a result the surrounding game coverage will originate at the site of the game. In a perfect world, this should mean better access to interviews and game specific information. Drew Goodman and George Frazier remain as the play-by-play team.
Nearby Ft. Collins Colorado has 870 KJMP Radio joining the regional network by picking up the Nuggets and Avalanche broadcasts starting in the fall. Flagship KCKK 1510 from Denver takes over, with KTNI 101.5 handling one of the conflicting games. KJMP carries ESPN programming the majority of the time, but word is they are targeting local sports talk prior to the start of the upcoming football season.
Denver's "The Fan" 104.3 FM, which loses the Nuggets and Avalanche, will continue along carrying ESPN Radio's national games. They are adding Colorado College hockey. Realistically, that is not a threat to compete against the Avalanche games. Sister station KEPN 1600 cointinues with Irv Brown and Joe Williams talking sports during the afternoon.
Mile High Sports Radio 1510 is losing morning co-host Tyler Maun to his dream of baseball play-by-play. Maun is leaving the Denver market and relocating to Myrtle Beach to handle the Class A South Carolina Pelicans broadcasts. That will make a nice resume for Maun to have play-by-play experience along with the Denver market, considering that he is at the tender age of 23.
COLUMBUS GA - Out with the local, in with more syndicated programming. Even smaller markets making the cutbacks. Mike Vee and Rachel Baribeau are out from WEAM 1580 as their 4 - 7 PM sports show has been canceled after 2 1/2 years due to budget cutbacks.
The replacement is a syndicated show from Alabama. So much for U. of Georgia fans wanting to hear about their team on a regular basis. The station has added Atlanta Hawks basketball along with the ESPN NBA package. Vee will continue as the voice of the Columbus Cottonmouths road games. This while the Columbus market now has - get this - a mighty one hour of local sports talk each day. And that is on a different station. WSHE 1270 airs B. R. Johnson from Noon to 1 PM on weekdays.
The nomination for the "Say what?" Award of the month goes to the promoters of a pair of Kentucky regional high school basketball tournaments coming up in March. That state's 9th and 10th Region Tournaments will be played at the Bank of Kentucky Center. Yet, arena officials have announced that unless specific games are sold out at least one week prior to being played, there can be no live broadcasts of the games. Not even radio or internet.
The only "exception" would be if a school located more than 30 miles away from the arena is playing. But there is a catch. No teams from the Northern Kentucky Athletic Conference are located more than 30 miles from the 9,400-seat arena.
Let's get this straight. An arena sponsored by a local bank for the benefit of added publicity doesn't want one of its biggest events on radio, TV, or even on the internet. I have made a few inquiries and thus far haven't found out about any local radio stations which are even talking about this, let alone trying to broadcast the games.
As I have commented several times in the past, a high school tournament is the type of event that "should" be on HD Radio and might help to make HD Radio viable after all. News and sports stations could use the secondary and perhaps thirdary channels to broadcast and then replay important high school games.
It gives the people who can't get to the games, such as grandparents and shift workers, the chance to hear a loved one and/or the local school in action. The family of the kid who has the big game or makes the winning shot would want to listen to and record the replay as a keepsake.
Local advertisers would know the small but targeted audience they are reaching.
But the radio stations would rather put on "album b-sides of the 80's" or some format that doesn't cost anything and the people forget about. And now, to top it off, we have a local bank behind preventing local high school tournament games from being broadcast. But where is the Cincinnati media on this one?
To this point, as far as I know, only the Kentucky Enquirer (part of the Cincinnati Enquirer) newspaper and web site have picked up on this story.
KR Sports has handled broadcasting the 9th Region tourney over the years. This new restriction probably means that Kevin Rengering and Randy Wilson will miss doing these broadcasts for first time since 1984.
The arena and promoters "defend" this by saying that a specific tournament game which sells out at least one week in advance could then be broadcast. But this isn't like the NFL where a local TV station buys remaining tickets to be able to have the local telecast and generate the ad revenue. This could be thousands of tickets for each of several games. Since the teams in the games generally aren't known more than a week ahead of time (and don't think that is a coincidence either), a TV or radio station buying tickets early could then be shutting out fans of one or both participating schools.
Meanwhile, elsewhere around Kentucky, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association enables a participating high school to select or allow a broadcast outlet for its games, at a cost of $350 for the radio rights.
If the Bank and the arena are that worried about not selling enough tickets, then don't host the games. But if they insist on bringing greed into high school sports, this is a different story. One that merits additional and immediate attention.
But I'm afraid that with the state of radio management being where it is today, this will go untouched. If I were in a position to do something about this, I would ask a competing bank or S & L to purchase all remaining tickets, give them the value of that purchase in air time, and have that competing bank sponsor the broadcasts after giving away the tickets at their branches nearest the participating schools.
The sponsoring bank generates walk-in traffic from the schools and positive publicity. The radio station has provided a unique opportunity for the bank to deliver its message. The community would be properly served with coverage of its local high school tournament.
And that radio station would perform a positive local innovation. If not, what kind of precedent could this set?
LOS ANGELES - As we suspected last week, the Angels have followed the Texas Rangers into the idea of splitting their radio coverage, as if fans will remember that different stations carry the weekend games than during the week. KFWB 980 will be airing 110 of the Angels regular season games starting in April. KLAA 830 (owned by Angels owner Arte Moreno) will only carry the weekend games.
However inconsistent, this marks a return of baseball to KFWB which was the Dodgers flagship station from 2003 through 2007. The broadcast team stays the same, with Rory Markas and Steve Physioc on play-by-play and Rex Hudler on color, as well as Terry Smith.
As a result, Angels and Rangers fans now have to find out where to listen to the games instead of having one station all the time. This, after trying to find out if that night's game is on over-the-air TV, regional cable (or an overflow channel when conflicts with other teams), ESPN, or Fox-TV. These teams could have a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday series with 3 TV channels and 2 radio stations involved. This helps the fans how?
MILWAUKEE - Cory Provus has left the Chicago Cubs radio booth to become the #2 broadcaster of the division rival Milwaukee Brewers starting immediately. Provus will handle radio play-by-play of the middle 3 innings and pre and post-game shows, with ageless Bob Uecker handling most of the play-by-play.
No replacement named yet for WGN Radio and the Cubs broadcast booth yet, which is only for handling one inning each game to relieve Pat Hughes. Provus is another Syracuse University graduate, coming from the school which has produced Bob Costas, Marv Albert, and Dick Stockton, among others.
CHICAGO - Congrats to Kip Lewis, the son of former New York Jets defensive back and NFL assistant coach Sherman Lewis, has been hired by Comcast SportsNet Chicago. His reporter and anchor duties will begin on March 2nd. Lewis was a sports anchor for WRTV-TV Indianapolis, and is best known for a weekend sports stint at WPIX-TV New York in 2004 and '05.
DENVER - The Rockies TV coverage stands to have improved pre and post-game programming. Fox Sports Rocky Mountain no longer has local studios, and as a result the surrounding game coverage will originate at the site of the game. In a perfect world, this should mean better access to interviews and game specific information. Drew Goodman and George Frazier remain as the play-by-play team.
Nearby Ft. Collins Colorado has 870 KJMP Radio joining the regional network by picking up the Nuggets and Avalanche broadcasts starting in the fall. Flagship KCKK 1510 from Denver takes over, with KTNI 101.5 handling one of the conflicting games. KJMP carries ESPN programming the majority of the time, but word is they are targeting local sports talk prior to the start of the upcoming football season.
Denver's "The Fan" 104.3 FM, which loses the Nuggets and Avalanche, will continue along carrying ESPN Radio's national games. They are adding Colorado College hockey. Realistically, that is not a threat to compete against the Avalanche games. Sister station KEPN 1600 cointinues with Irv Brown and Joe Williams talking sports during the afternoon.
Mile High Sports Radio 1510 is losing morning co-host Tyler Maun to his dream of baseball play-by-play. Maun is leaving the Denver market and relocating to Myrtle Beach to handle the Class A South Carolina Pelicans broadcasts. That will make a nice resume for Maun to have play-by-play experience along with the Denver market, considering that he is at the tender age of 23.
COLUMBUS GA - Out with the local, in with more syndicated programming. Even smaller markets making the cutbacks. Mike Vee and Rachel Baribeau are out from WEAM 1580 as their 4 - 7 PM sports show has been canceled after 2 1/2 years due to budget cutbacks.
The replacement is a syndicated show from Alabama. So much for U. of Georgia fans wanting to hear about their team on a regular basis. The station has added Atlanta Hawks basketball along with the ESPN NBA package. Vee will continue as the voice of the Columbus Cottonmouths road games. This while the Columbus market now has - get this - a mighty one hour of local sports talk each day. And that is on a different station. WSHE 1270 airs B. R. Johnson from Noon to 1 PM on weekdays.
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