It is always interesting when teams in different sports and local media work together for the enjoyment and benefit of local sports fans. Boston fans figure to benefit from just that this weekend.
While the Bruins are playing in the Stanley Cup finals, the primary sports focus is toward the ice during June for the first time in Boston. (I don't recall the Bruins being in a totally in June championship series prior to this season.) From a marketing standpoint, the Bruins' timing couldn't be any better. Local fans have moved on since the Celtics were eliminated in the 2nd round, and there is uncertainty over when the Patriots next game will be.
WBZ-FM The Sports Hub has shown a ratings increase for the entire station above and beyond its broadcasts of all of the Bruins games during this run.
Yet, June in Boston also means a major focus on the Red Sox, especially this season as the Red Sox are already battling the Yankees for American League East supremacy. Yet, the Red Sox have come to the rescue for Boston and New England area sports fans this Saturday (6/4).
Originally scheduled to host the Oakland A's for a night game in Fenway Park, the Red Sox have moved their game to a 1 PM day game. This was absolutely not a move for TV. This week, Fox Sports returns to its usual 4:10 ET start time for its regional games, and the Red Sox vs. A's games is not one of them. Therefore, this decision to move the game to the afternoon appears to be so that fans can enjoy both the Red Sox and Bruins games on Saturday.
Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals is on Saturday night, which would have originally conflicted with most of the Red Sox game. WEEI certainly benefits, along with NESN, which air the Red Sox games. In this instance, so do the fans who want to follow both teams on the same day.
It is nice to see something like this done to benefit the fans rather than for a TV network.
One of my contacts at a sports station that competes against The Dan Patrick Show asked me privately if I was going to comment about The Dan Patrick Show being reruns again on Memorial Day. At first, I told him I wouldn't, since I was done with that last holiday season. Guess I'm not done with that.
On the morning of Memorial Day, the story broke about Jim Tressel resigning from Ohio State, a big sports story. Naturally, I (like other sports fans, I'm sure) wanted to get some reaction to it. Of course, ESPN on TV and radio had the usual live coverage. In fact, Colin Cowherd was live on ESPN discussing that very topic. Then, it's over to The Dan Patrick Show. At the time I tuned in, during its usual air time, Patrick was discussing the Celtics vs. Heat series. You know, the one that ended more than two weeks ago.
Again, I have liked Dan Patrick for the past 20+ years as much as most other sports fans. And, yes, he is entitled to days off. But, frankly, the show is not. A rerun or "best of"?
This is another insult to sports fans everywhere. Who would possibly be listening to analysis of a series that already happened?
As my contact pointed out, this was another boost for stations competing against The Dan Patrick Show. Sports fans wanting information about the Tressel story, and to hear about the Indy 500 from the day before, look toward the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Finals about to start, and the "one-third" point of the baseball season would obviously head toward those other stations or networks.
The Patrick Show airs on several regional TV sports networks which are based around live sports coverage, as well as on sports radio stations around the country. Their credibility is put at risk by this. And let's just say I'm glad I'm not an advertiser on that show, or responsible for placement, because they paid for nothing that day.
Based on the number of TV and radio stations supporting the show, there is no excuse for not having one or more other hosts doing a live show when Dan is not working. There are the "Danettes" in the studio on a daily basis. Better yet, there is no reason not to bring in a host from a major market to fill in, such as Fox Sports Radio does, and/or a current or former player in the studio to bring fresh, live, and interesting content.
DALLAS: The Rangers decided to end their announcer experiment less than 2 months in to the current season, giving the quick hook to John Rhadigan's TV play-by-play assignment. Rhadigan has already moved back to his studio pre and post-game role (since no official replacement had been named yet), while Dave Barnett moved over from the radio to the TV booth for at least the rest of this season. Former pitcher and analyst Steve Busby will take on some of the radio duties, along with pre and post-game host Bryan Dolgin handling some, each working with Eric Nadal for the rest of the season.
It's too early to tell whether or not the team will seek a fresh TV voice for 2012 and beyond and move Barnett back to the radio booth, or continue this arrangement and bring a regular partner for Nadal for next season. This all happened after the team did not rehire Josh Lewin, who continues to host a midday show on The Fan KRLD-FM locally.
MOBILE: WNSP 105.5 is another station which did not renew with ESPN Radio, reportedly over money issues, as of Wednesday (6/1). The station continues as all sports, and is keeping its local morning show with Lee Shirvanian and Mak Heim and afternoon shows with Paul Finebaum, and then Pat Greenwood with Randy Kennedy. In addition, the station now goes local from Noon to 2 PM weekdays with the "Sidelines" show with Randy Burgan. The station had carried ESPN programming since 1994, and now has added Sporting News Radio for the remaining spots and weekends. It will also continue to carry the New Orleans Saints games along with South Alabama football and basketball broadcasts.
NATIONAL: Speaking of Fox Sports Radio, their "Loose Cannons" with Pat O'Brien and others will be away from June 20 to July 1st. Of course, the network has replacements lined up. Andy Furman, the Cincinnati based sports talker who has filled in and hosted weekend shows for Fox over the past couple of years, will be teamed with Chicago talker Mike North from 3 to 7 PM ET weekdays during those two weeks. This is expected to be a tryout for Furman to move into a weekday slot at some point in the near future. Mike North, formerly of WSCR Chicago, has previously filled in on WFAN New York, and hosts weekend shows on Fox Sports Radio currently as well.
PHILADELPHIA: Local listeners will hear less of Tony Bruno, as Bruno is giving up his extra duty co-host spot on WPEN 950 early afternoons. Bruno had been doing these two hours just for the Philly audience along with his national late night show. WPEN co-host Harry Mayes will continue, likely with a new co-host being added in the near future to lead into Mike Missanelli's show.
SALT LAKE: The University of Utah's move into the Pac-12 is already resulting in added football exposure for the coming season. Now three of their games are scheduled for national TV on three different networks. The Sept. 10th vs. USC will be on Versus, Sept. 17 vs. BYU on ESPN, and Nov. 25 vs. Colorado on Fox Sports.
TACOMA: Sorry to hear of the passing of Clay Huntington at the age of 89. Huntington is believed to have been a factor in Tacoma getting a AAA baseball team in the early 60's. He called the Class A Tacoma Tigers back in the late 1940's and early '50's, and after that called recreations of MLB games for a 14 station network in the northwest states.
Showing posts with label dan patrick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dan patrick. Show all posts
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The Broadcast Booth - December 29th Update
As the NFL playoff races again go down to the final weekend, the strong TV ratings are playing a direct role in the drama still to unfold.
We shouldn't overlook the moves by Fox Sports for Sunday (1/2) of putting 3 NFL games with playoff implications on at the same time. This will be an instance of helping the competitive balance and NFL fans while it is really based on generating more huge ratings for Fox.
Fox moved the Chicago at Green Bay and Dallas at Philadelphia games to 4:15 ET instead of keeping those as early regional games. Both of those games have NFC playoff implications, as does the N.Y. Giants at Washington game, originally scheduled for 4:15.
Fans have seen it happen in many past years where early games decide playoff fates instead and render a doubleheader game or two to meaningless. Not so this time around. The ticket holding fans should be thankful for this, since it gives each game more meaning. But is this really for the ticket holding fans?
Guess again. Since both Fox and CBS have doubleheader game telecasts, this is a huge push for Fox to win out over CBS on the regular season's final day. Having New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia's avid football markets glued to the screens during that time period, not to mention the Dallas Cowboys no matter what their record, should help Fox kill in the ratings. They'll kill CBS' telecasts of Tennessee at Indy or Jax at Houston. At least the fans benefit along with Fox TV, unless you want to find a "must see" early game.
NBC should do well again on Sunday (Jan. 2). Even with bowl game and the regular NFL Sunday "burnout" possibilities, NBC has the St. Louis at Seattle telecast which sends the game winner into the NFC Playoffs.
It remains to be seen if the Philadelphia Eagles show any effects of having played on Tuesday (12/28) night after the weather related postponement from Sunday. NBC did well with its Tuesday night prime time telecast. It was nice to see the game start right away after 8 PM ET instead of rehashing everything on another pre-game show. NBC will say that they did their pre-game show as scheduled on Sunday night, when they went 90 minutes instead of 75 before cutting away to game shows. What they won't say is that they wanted to get the game over with by 11 PM so that Jay Leno and their late night lineup would be on time. However, they didn't say it, and it didn't happen, as the game was delayed due to injuries and replay challenges.
Early returns (as of press time on Wednesday) show that NBC topped the prime time ratings with the Vikings' upset of the Eagles. It helped that fans in New York and Chicago had an interest in the game due to the playoff possibilities for their local teams.
But back to Sunday. It certainly was big news that the Eagles game was postponed until Tuesday due to the snowstorm. CBS had it on their bottom line scroll throughout most of its early game telecasts, which was understandable. What is curious is that every time the story scrolled across, it gave the 8 PM ET start time for the Tuesday game. No one was saying on Monday. I'm wondering if that was some sort of league directive. CBS would have no reason (or shouldn't have) to promote the start time of a game to be on NBC.
On Christmas Day, the NBA ruled the ratings, just as we thought. ESPN and ABC had ratings increases of 20 to 45% over last year's telecasts on that day, and this year a total of 5 games were televised.
You can't overlook that the Miami vs. Lakers (LeBron vs. Kobe) showed a 45% increase over last season's Christmas marquee game of Cleveland vs. the Lakers. Before you think "That was a different matchup", consider that both were LeBron vs. Kobe. In Miami, that telecast was ABC's highest rated NBA regular season telecast there. The earlier ABC telecast of Boston at Orlando showed Boston as the top local market for ratings, and was ABC's highest rated regular season telecast ever in Orlando.
The NFL Network telecast on Christmas night of Dallas vs. Arizona finished as the day's most watched program on cable TV. The Network can only dream of what their audience would have been if the Cowboys were having a good season or if that game had any playoff implications.
Meanwhile, now Time Warner Cable is in dispute with Sinclair Broadcast Group over carrying local channels in some east coast markets. This while thousands of AT&T U-Verse viewers subscribing to their sports package lost about a dozen of the Fox Sports regional networks mid-December with no announcement. While it may be easy to blame Fox Sports, AT&T makes up for that by continuing to charge subscribers to the package the same amount of money (unless they call to complain) even with far less channels. And the fans who are or would pay the expensive television bills still don't have a say - either way.
Congrats to Mike Pereira, named "Sports Media Person of the Year" for 2010 by Sports Illustrated for his roving commentary about officials challenges during Fox NFL telecasts this season. Going into the final weekend of regular season play, Pereira has correctly predicted the outcome of 49 out of 50 red flags he analyzed for the network.
Meanwhile, I understand that people in media like to have time off to spend with family around certain holidays. Yet, I understand that over the years many a media member has to do his or her thing on those days because sports increases for holiday audiences.
But here we go again. Too many sports talk hosts are on vacation this week, and it is one of the busiest sports weeks of the entire year. There is plenty to talk about. In many instances, sports radio callers are forced to discuss their opinions with part-time or replacement hosts. At least it is live and up to date programming, so I suppose I can live with it.
Not to pick on Dan Patrick again, but there is no excuse for "best of" repeats on his morning radio and TV show all this week. Especially within a few months of having added several major market TV outlets to the show. It seems like he has been airing repeats more often than in the studio. Sports happens every day. It is not like an entertainment show where actors discuss current movies.
C'mon, Dan. The next month you are taking off, get some players or fellow broadcasters to fill in for a live show. Or let your production staff do some hosting. Or record some topical interviews to keep it current. Instead, it drives listeners and viewers to other stations for live sports talk. If I were an executive with a regional TV Network or large or medium radio market that signed this show, I would be incensed at having my audience pissed away from part of morning drive. A vacation is one thing. Blowing off listeners and viewers is another.
DALLAS: The Ticket 1310 had an 18 hour charity marathon on Monday (12/27). To its credit, listeners were not bored with endless pitches for charity in between the same fans calling in with the same complaints as any other day. Instead, the station went the extra mile, with live guests including Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk. Even though this is how it should be, it was good to hear, and also shows the level of competition among the sports stations serving the Metroplex.
BALTIMORE: Tonight's (Weds. 12/29) game between Towson University and LaSalle, as aired on WTMD 89.7, was a special one for Spiro Morekas. Now in his 20th season of calling Towson's games, this one marked his 1,000th broadcast.
YOUNGSTOWN OH: This past Monday (12/27) at Noon, WNIO 1390 did as rumored and dropped music to pick up Fox Sports Radio. The station will continue to carry Cleveland Cavaliers basketball, Pittsburgh Steelers football, and most Ohio State University broadcasts.
EL PASO: KROD 600 drops its talk format and will indeed become ESPN Radio on January 18th. The play-by-play the station has been carrying will continue on KROD. In addition to local high school broadcasts, the station will keep Dallas Cowboys and Texas Longhorns football, and add play-by-play it can air without schedule conflicts from ESPN Radio. KHEY 1380 had carried ESPN locally.
FINALLY: As we wrap up 2010, let me take this opportunity to wish each of you a Happy New Year, and thank you for the comments and e-mails (positive and negative) throughout this year. The Broadcast Booth has been renewed for another year (its 3rd full year) and I'm looking forward to it.
We shouldn't overlook the moves by Fox Sports for Sunday (1/2) of putting 3 NFL games with playoff implications on at the same time. This will be an instance of helping the competitive balance and NFL fans while it is really based on generating more huge ratings for Fox.
Fox moved the Chicago at Green Bay and Dallas at Philadelphia games to 4:15 ET instead of keeping those as early regional games. Both of those games have NFC playoff implications, as does the N.Y. Giants at Washington game, originally scheduled for 4:15.
Fans have seen it happen in many past years where early games decide playoff fates instead and render a doubleheader game or two to meaningless. Not so this time around. The ticket holding fans should be thankful for this, since it gives each game more meaning. But is this really for the ticket holding fans?
Guess again. Since both Fox and CBS have doubleheader game telecasts, this is a huge push for Fox to win out over CBS on the regular season's final day. Having New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia's avid football markets glued to the screens during that time period, not to mention the Dallas Cowboys no matter what their record, should help Fox kill in the ratings. They'll kill CBS' telecasts of Tennessee at Indy or Jax at Houston. At least the fans benefit along with Fox TV, unless you want to find a "must see" early game.
NBC should do well again on Sunday (Jan. 2). Even with bowl game and the regular NFL Sunday "burnout" possibilities, NBC has the St. Louis at Seattle telecast which sends the game winner into the NFC Playoffs.
It remains to be seen if the Philadelphia Eagles show any effects of having played on Tuesday (12/28) night after the weather related postponement from Sunday. NBC did well with its Tuesday night prime time telecast. It was nice to see the game start right away after 8 PM ET instead of rehashing everything on another pre-game show. NBC will say that they did their pre-game show as scheduled on Sunday night, when they went 90 minutes instead of 75 before cutting away to game shows. What they won't say is that they wanted to get the game over with by 11 PM so that Jay Leno and their late night lineup would be on time. However, they didn't say it, and it didn't happen, as the game was delayed due to injuries and replay challenges.
Early returns (as of press time on Wednesday) show that NBC topped the prime time ratings with the Vikings' upset of the Eagles. It helped that fans in New York and Chicago had an interest in the game due to the playoff possibilities for their local teams.
But back to Sunday. It certainly was big news that the Eagles game was postponed until Tuesday due to the snowstorm. CBS had it on their bottom line scroll throughout most of its early game telecasts, which was understandable. What is curious is that every time the story scrolled across, it gave the 8 PM ET start time for the Tuesday game. No one was saying on Monday. I'm wondering if that was some sort of league directive. CBS would have no reason (or shouldn't have) to promote the start time of a game to be on NBC.
On Christmas Day, the NBA ruled the ratings, just as we thought. ESPN and ABC had ratings increases of 20 to 45% over last year's telecasts on that day, and this year a total of 5 games were televised.
You can't overlook that the Miami vs. Lakers (LeBron vs. Kobe) showed a 45% increase over last season's Christmas marquee game of Cleveland vs. the Lakers. Before you think "That was a different matchup", consider that both were LeBron vs. Kobe. In Miami, that telecast was ABC's highest rated NBA regular season telecast there. The earlier ABC telecast of Boston at Orlando showed Boston as the top local market for ratings, and was ABC's highest rated regular season telecast ever in Orlando.
The NFL Network telecast on Christmas night of Dallas vs. Arizona finished as the day's most watched program on cable TV. The Network can only dream of what their audience would have been if the Cowboys were having a good season or if that game had any playoff implications.
Meanwhile, now Time Warner Cable is in dispute with Sinclair Broadcast Group over carrying local channels in some east coast markets. This while thousands of AT&T U-Verse viewers subscribing to their sports package lost about a dozen of the Fox Sports regional networks mid-December with no announcement. While it may be easy to blame Fox Sports, AT&T makes up for that by continuing to charge subscribers to the package the same amount of money (unless they call to complain) even with far less channels. And the fans who are or would pay the expensive television bills still don't have a say - either way.
Congrats to Mike Pereira, named "Sports Media Person of the Year" for 2010 by Sports Illustrated for his roving commentary about officials challenges during Fox NFL telecasts this season. Going into the final weekend of regular season play, Pereira has correctly predicted the outcome of 49 out of 50 red flags he analyzed for the network.
Meanwhile, I understand that people in media like to have time off to spend with family around certain holidays. Yet, I understand that over the years many a media member has to do his or her thing on those days because sports increases for holiday audiences.
But here we go again. Too many sports talk hosts are on vacation this week, and it is one of the busiest sports weeks of the entire year. There is plenty to talk about. In many instances, sports radio callers are forced to discuss their opinions with part-time or replacement hosts. At least it is live and up to date programming, so I suppose I can live with it.
Not to pick on Dan Patrick again, but there is no excuse for "best of" repeats on his morning radio and TV show all this week. Especially within a few months of having added several major market TV outlets to the show. It seems like he has been airing repeats more often than in the studio. Sports happens every day. It is not like an entertainment show where actors discuss current movies.
C'mon, Dan. The next month you are taking off, get some players or fellow broadcasters to fill in for a live show. Or let your production staff do some hosting. Or record some topical interviews to keep it current. Instead, it drives listeners and viewers to other stations for live sports talk. If I were an executive with a regional TV Network or large or medium radio market that signed this show, I would be incensed at having my audience pissed away from part of morning drive. A vacation is one thing. Blowing off listeners and viewers is another.
DALLAS: The Ticket 1310 had an 18 hour charity marathon on Monday (12/27). To its credit, listeners were not bored with endless pitches for charity in between the same fans calling in with the same complaints as any other day. Instead, the station went the extra mile, with live guests including Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk. Even though this is how it should be, it was good to hear, and also shows the level of competition among the sports stations serving the Metroplex.
BALTIMORE: Tonight's (Weds. 12/29) game between Towson University and LaSalle, as aired on WTMD 89.7, was a special one for Spiro Morekas. Now in his 20th season of calling Towson's games, this one marked his 1,000th broadcast.
YOUNGSTOWN OH: This past Monday (12/27) at Noon, WNIO 1390 did as rumored and dropped music to pick up Fox Sports Radio. The station will continue to carry Cleveland Cavaliers basketball, Pittsburgh Steelers football, and most Ohio State University broadcasts.
EL PASO: KROD 600 drops its talk format and will indeed become ESPN Radio on January 18th. The play-by-play the station has been carrying will continue on KROD. In addition to local high school broadcasts, the station will keep Dallas Cowboys and Texas Longhorns football, and add play-by-play it can air without schedule conflicts from ESPN Radio. KHEY 1380 had carried ESPN locally.
FINALLY: As we wrap up 2010, let me take this opportunity to wish each of you a Happy New Year, and thank you for the comments and e-mails (positive and negative) throughout this year. The Broadcast Booth has been renewed for another year (its 3rd full year) and I'm looking forward to it.
Monday, November 29, 2010
The Broadcast Booth - November 29 update
The Thanksgiving weekend is one of the busiest sports weekends of the entire year, yet some radio and TV stations clearly overlooked when scheduling programming for the sports fans. It's not that the personalities do not deserve some time off, but it is that we as sports fans deserve a realistic alternative instead of being kicked to the curb.
There I was on Thanksgiving morning turning on my TV. It was 3 hours before the first NFL game started. NBA news including Miami being on a losing streak. The night before in the NHL saw the first regular season meeting of Chicago and San Jose who met in the Western Conference finals in the spring. Plenty of college football to come over the next 2 days. College hoops tournaments going at all hours.
Silly me. I turned over to watch some of the Dan Patrick Show, now that it has recently gone to a TV simulcast on many of the Fox Sports and Comcast regional channels. A rare chance for me (and other sports fans) to watch the show for more than a few minutes.
What did I see? A "Best Of" show. Worse yet, for the sake of this column I tuned in on Friday morning as well, only to find a repeat of a show from earlier in the week.
On both mornings, ESPN was live with its "radio" shows on TV, as in Mike & Mike and The Herd, whether with substitute hosts or not.
Several of the sports radio stations across the country that I checked also had substitute hosts on, even on Friday morning. At least it was live programming with current sports, even if it wasn't with the regular name hosts.
But there is no excuse for The Dan Patrick Show to repeat and essentially blow off its audience. It has only been within the past few weeks that Patrick's show went to the TV simulcast, and that markets like Chicago were able to hear or watch the show live. And this is how sports fans are treated?
Here was a chance to show thousands of potential "new" viewers (and listeners) what the show is all about. Instead, we get repeats? Sorry, but Patrick could have, at the very least, recorded his predictions and thoughts about the upcoming Thursday NFL games. He could have had fresh interviews in the can. He could have had a guest host, maybe even a celebrity of sorts, host a live and current show and make Thanksgiving fun and special for his current and potential new audience.
What about Black Friday? Patrick and his show totally blew it again. A lot of sports fans had the day off, with millions of people spending more than usual amounts of time in the car with shopping or road travel. The chance to listen for an hour instead of 5 minutes. And all we get is a repeat?
I have liked Dan Patrick for years, but now consider myself offended that his show was not live on either day. Black Friday is not a legal holiday. Now I'm back to my normal schedule on Monday with little time to watch or listen. But now it doesn't matter in the future.
What a blow for the regional TV sports networks. They are trying to capture the sports fan audience during times when there are not any games being shown. And they lose a golden opportunity like that. I'm glad I'm not an advertiser, paying to reach an audience that had no reason to watch or listen.
Same for the sports radio stations with substitute hosts. With all of the events going on over the weekend, that was prime time for sports talk. I'm sure these hosts would criticize an NFL coach for playing his reserves in a game which did not sell out since fewer fans than usual were in attendance. But that's what these stations and programmers just did to us sports fans.
Even though ESPN has mostly substitute hosts, at least they kept it live and topical. They get some credit.
Note to station programmers. Fans want to hear and talk sports from the 'starting lineup' more often than only on working weekdays.
As you might expect, the holiday weekend had its share of TV viewers. The Dallas vs. New Orleans game was the best rated Thanksgiving game on Fox since 1995, while the New England vs. Detroit game was CBS' best on turkey day since its return to NFL coverage in the late 90's.
The Sunday Night Football game with San Diego beating Indy, even becoming a blowout in the 2nd half, was the top rated TV show for the 12th week in a row, and even drew a bigger audience than last year's Thanksgiving Sunday telecast which featured the Steelers.
Curiously, Norfolk, Richmond, and Albuquerque, were among the top 10 metered markets for the Sunday Night Football telecast.
CBS also scored well with Friday's Auburn vs. Alabama telecast, as the game is now the highest rated college football telecast of the season.
Too bad that fans had fewer radio and TV sports outlets and were reduced to substitute hosts to discuss all of these games over the weekend. But the hosts needed their time off, so screw the audience.
Meanwhile, Sports Byline USA Network has added a boxing show, hosted by Pedro Fernandez, and airing early Saturday afternoons.
SAN FRANCISCO: Somebody wasn't paying attention last Tuesday (11/23) during the CSN Bay Area "Chronicle Live" show. Nearly 5 minutes of a discussion segment was interrupted by camera shots with little or no sound from camera shots before the Oregon Ducks basketball game vs. Texas Southern, as indicated on graphics which came on the screen. Surprised viewers saw multiple camera angles showing one of the teams practicing, and another shot of the empty chairs with microphones for the announcers to eventually do the open for the game telecast.
Although it took nearly 5 minutes for viewers to be returned to the botched TV segment (which made no acknowledgement of the cutaway), CSN was lucky that no one at the nearly empty arena knew the cameras were on live TV. Boys will be boys, but in that instance they didn't know.
MIAMI: With all there is to talk about regarding the Heat's slow start, Dennis Rodman tried to do all he could to upstage that last Tuesday (11/23) morning. Rodman had called into Jorge Sedano's show on The Ticket 790 to comment on the Heat when a female voice became prominent along with an obviously distracted Rodman. Yet, instead of cutting the interview short, Sedano asked Rodman if he was "getting it on", and allowed Rodman to reply that she "was sucking something" on the air. You could say that the call wasn't for Rodman to talk about the Miami Heat. He wanted the world to know that he was "in heat".
WASHINGTON DC: Steve Czaban has been renewed for 2 more years on ESPN 980 as a result of his success upon joining the station earlier this year.
TOLEDO: Sorry that we overlooked this last week. The death of Frank Gilhooley in late November marked the end of an era in Toledo baseball. Not only did Gilhooley call Mud Hens baseball for more than 20 seasons from the mid-80's until 2007, but his 60 years on the air in the market included plenty more. His play-by-play went back to the 1950's and the then Toledo Sox of the American Association. He passed away at the age of 86.
AKRON: Akron Aeros baseball will remain on Fox Sports 1350 for the next 2 seasons, as the station will carry all 142 games. Jim Clark returns for his 19th season of play-by-play, while afternoon co-host Ken Carman will return to the booth for his 2nd season.
There I was on Thanksgiving morning turning on my TV. It was 3 hours before the first NFL game started. NBA news including Miami being on a losing streak. The night before in the NHL saw the first regular season meeting of Chicago and San Jose who met in the Western Conference finals in the spring. Plenty of college football to come over the next 2 days. College hoops tournaments going at all hours.
Silly me. I turned over to watch some of the Dan Patrick Show, now that it has recently gone to a TV simulcast on many of the Fox Sports and Comcast regional channels. A rare chance for me (and other sports fans) to watch the show for more than a few minutes.
What did I see? A "Best Of" show. Worse yet, for the sake of this column I tuned in on Friday morning as well, only to find a repeat of a show from earlier in the week.
On both mornings, ESPN was live with its "radio" shows on TV, as in Mike & Mike and The Herd, whether with substitute hosts or not.
Several of the sports radio stations across the country that I checked also had substitute hosts on, even on Friday morning. At least it was live programming with current sports, even if it wasn't with the regular name hosts.
But there is no excuse for The Dan Patrick Show to repeat and essentially blow off its audience. It has only been within the past few weeks that Patrick's show went to the TV simulcast, and that markets like Chicago were able to hear or watch the show live. And this is how sports fans are treated?
Here was a chance to show thousands of potential "new" viewers (and listeners) what the show is all about. Instead, we get repeats? Sorry, but Patrick could have, at the very least, recorded his predictions and thoughts about the upcoming Thursday NFL games. He could have had fresh interviews in the can. He could have had a guest host, maybe even a celebrity of sorts, host a live and current show and make Thanksgiving fun and special for his current and potential new audience.
What about Black Friday? Patrick and his show totally blew it again. A lot of sports fans had the day off, with millions of people spending more than usual amounts of time in the car with shopping or road travel. The chance to listen for an hour instead of 5 minutes. And all we get is a repeat?
I have liked Dan Patrick for years, but now consider myself offended that his show was not live on either day. Black Friday is not a legal holiday. Now I'm back to my normal schedule on Monday with little time to watch or listen. But now it doesn't matter in the future.
What a blow for the regional TV sports networks. They are trying to capture the sports fan audience during times when there are not any games being shown. And they lose a golden opportunity like that. I'm glad I'm not an advertiser, paying to reach an audience that had no reason to watch or listen.
Same for the sports radio stations with substitute hosts. With all of the events going on over the weekend, that was prime time for sports talk. I'm sure these hosts would criticize an NFL coach for playing his reserves in a game which did not sell out since fewer fans than usual were in attendance. But that's what these stations and programmers just did to us sports fans.
Even though ESPN has mostly substitute hosts, at least they kept it live and topical. They get some credit.
Note to station programmers. Fans want to hear and talk sports from the 'starting lineup' more often than only on working weekdays.
As you might expect, the holiday weekend had its share of TV viewers. The Dallas vs. New Orleans game was the best rated Thanksgiving game on Fox since 1995, while the New England vs. Detroit game was CBS' best on turkey day since its return to NFL coverage in the late 90's.
The Sunday Night Football game with San Diego beating Indy, even becoming a blowout in the 2nd half, was the top rated TV show for the 12th week in a row, and even drew a bigger audience than last year's Thanksgiving Sunday telecast which featured the Steelers.
Curiously, Norfolk, Richmond, and Albuquerque, were among the top 10 metered markets for the Sunday Night Football telecast.
CBS also scored well with Friday's Auburn vs. Alabama telecast, as the game is now the highest rated college football telecast of the season.
Too bad that fans had fewer radio and TV sports outlets and were reduced to substitute hosts to discuss all of these games over the weekend. But the hosts needed their time off, so screw the audience.
Meanwhile, Sports Byline USA Network has added a boxing show, hosted by Pedro Fernandez, and airing early Saturday afternoons.
SAN FRANCISCO: Somebody wasn't paying attention last Tuesday (11/23) during the CSN Bay Area "Chronicle Live" show. Nearly 5 minutes of a discussion segment was interrupted by camera shots with little or no sound from camera shots before the Oregon Ducks basketball game vs. Texas Southern, as indicated on graphics which came on the screen. Surprised viewers saw multiple camera angles showing one of the teams practicing, and another shot of the empty chairs with microphones for the announcers to eventually do the open for the game telecast.
Although it took nearly 5 minutes for viewers to be returned to the botched TV segment (which made no acknowledgement of the cutaway), CSN was lucky that no one at the nearly empty arena knew the cameras were on live TV. Boys will be boys, but in that instance they didn't know.
MIAMI: With all there is to talk about regarding the Heat's slow start, Dennis Rodman tried to do all he could to upstage that last Tuesday (11/23) morning. Rodman had called into Jorge Sedano's show on The Ticket 790 to comment on the Heat when a female voice became prominent along with an obviously distracted Rodman. Yet, instead of cutting the interview short, Sedano asked Rodman if he was "getting it on", and allowed Rodman to reply that she "was sucking something" on the air. You could say that the call wasn't for Rodman to talk about the Miami Heat. He wanted the world to know that he was "in heat".
WASHINGTON DC: Steve Czaban has been renewed for 2 more years on ESPN 980 as a result of his success upon joining the station earlier this year.
TOLEDO: Sorry that we overlooked this last week. The death of Frank Gilhooley in late November marked the end of an era in Toledo baseball. Not only did Gilhooley call Mud Hens baseball for more than 20 seasons from the mid-80's until 2007, but his 60 years on the air in the market included plenty more. His play-by-play went back to the 1950's and the then Toledo Sox of the American Association. He passed away at the age of 86.
AKRON: Akron Aeros baseball will remain on Fox Sports 1350 for the next 2 seasons, as the station will carry all 142 games. Jim Clark returns for his 19th season of play-by-play, while afternoon co-host Ken Carman will return to the booth for his 2nd season.
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