The Sports Media Thread

[dfwabel]

Pac 12 Network now off ATT Uverse.

https://awfulannouncing.com/league-networks/pac-12-network-isnt-even-fighting-to-stay-on-att-u-verse.html

 

[SFGiants58]

On 11/4/2018 at 1:48 AM, SFGiants58 said:

I’m listening to Gladiator, a podcast produced by Wondery and The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team on Aaron Hernandez. It’s a well-produced true crime story, examining Hernandez’s life and the different factors that played into his development as a football player and the lead-up to his arrest. 

 

I finished it, and I really liked it! The producers made fantastic use of interviews and archival materials, such as the prison phone calls and the perspectives of his family and friends. 

 

My one point of contention is that the show brings up the first public discussion of Hernandez’s sexuality (on a TV interview with an author) right before describing the night of Hernandez’s suicide. I get why it was done (chronological reasons), but the juxtaposition of the two events seems a bit iffy. Maybe it’s just me, I don’t know.

 

Still, I recommend the podcast to anyone with an interest in the case. I’d also recommend Last Podcast on the Left’s Chris Benoit episode for a similar discussion (albeit with far more dark humor about wrestling’s professional culture, YMMV with some of it) about sporting culture, CTE, and the public response to athletes committing murder.

[The_Admiral]

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/12/13/18137938/nfl-fox-deal-rupert-murdoch-1993-john-madden-terry-bradshaw-howie-long-jimmy-johnson-cbs-nbc

 

I'm fascinated by the NFL's TV realignment in the '90s, particularly how the Packers moving from CBS to Fox meant channel 6 in Milwaukee did the same, leaving the market CBS-less for a few months until channel 58 (that high!) took over. Also, NBC's successive losses of the AFC and Seinfeld made them go all in on the awful Friends, and with too much money tied up in Friends, NBC cheaply filled programming hours with reality shows, one of them starring that one guy. 

 

If CBS didn't poach baseball from NBC, maybe lots of bad things don't happen.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

40 minutes ago, the admiral said:

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/12/13/18137938/nfl-fox-deal-rupert-murdoch-1993-john-madden-terry-bradshaw-howie-long-jimmy-johnson-cbs-nbc

 

I'm fascinated by the NFL's TV realignment in the '90s, particularly how the Packers moving from CBS to Fox meant channel 6 in Milwaukee did the same, leaving the market CBS-less for a few months until channel 58 (that high!) took over. Also, NBC's successive losses of the AFC and Seinfeld made them go all in on the awful Friends, and with too much money tied up in Friends, NBC cheaply filled programming hours with reality shows, one of them starring that one guy.  

  

If CBS didn't poach baseball from NBC, maybe lots of bad things don't happen. 

 

The fate of our country has been tied to football three times then: the USFL, the failed Bills purchase, and NBC's bad programming decisions. If anything, it seems like NCAA football would have had the bigger impact, but here we are.

[The_Admiral]

I'm amazed how much money Friends has made. By the last three or four years (out of ten), they were making absurd demands because none of the principals wanted to do the damn show anymore, but NBC kept calling their bluff and meeting said absurd demands. And now Netflix is paying $100 million to license the streaming rights for one year. One single year! Why?

 

It's interesting to flesh out the alternate timeline where CBS doesn't get any big ideas about baseball (which it made a complete and utter hash of, a topic I'd like to see a similar oral history written for) and has the funds to match a Fox offer and keep the NFC. The AFC and Fox may have been a better fit, with the smaller markets and the old outlaw-league teams, but it's possible NBC shuts them out as well and Fox just putters along as UPN with better shows.

[MadmanLA]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/12/13/18137938/nfl-fox-deal-rupert-murdoch-1993-john-madden-terry-bradshaw-howie-long-jimmy-johnson-cbs-nbc

 

I'm fascinated by the NFL's TV realignment in the '90s, particularly how the Packers moving from CBS to Fox meant channel 6 in Milwaukee did the same, leaving the market CBS-less for a few months until channel 58 (that high!) took over. Also, NBC's successive losses of the AFC and Seinfeld made them go all in on the awful Friends, and with too much money tied up in Friends, NBC cheaply filled programming hours with reality shows, one of them starring that one guy. 

 

If CBS didn't poach baseball from NBC, maybe lots of bad things don't happen.

 

You and me both...if you really break it down to its core, the Fox-NFL TV deal changed the entire American TV business forever.  At the same time you had stations that not only defecting to Fox, but to an lesser extent, ABC and NBC were also either working on keeping its longtime affiliations together as well, and in some cases, locking-up group-wide affiliations between the station groups and networks.  I've done my share of reading and research on this stuff for years...of all the NFC markets at the time (and remember that Fox's first year of NFL coverage was also the final season the Rams [and Raiders] played in greater Los Angeles), Phoenix was probably the most affected, because four of its major commercial TV stations were involved, and each of them either swapped, lost, or a gained a network affiliation:

 

KTVK Channel 3: ABC to independent

KPHO 5: independent to CBS

KSAZ 10: CBS to Fox

KNXV 15: Fox to ABC

 

Channel 15 was/still is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, and Scripps signed a group-wide affiliation deal with ABC around 1994, mainly to keep ABC on its Detroit (WXYZ) and Cleveland (WEWS) stations.  This same deal also saw KNXV and two other Scripps-owned Fox affiliates (KSHB Kansas City and WFTS Tampa) go to ABC, while Cincinnati's WCPO went from CBS to ABC.  The Scripps-ABC agreement, in turn, also played a huge role in the Big Three network affiliates in both Baltimore and Denver conducting three-way swaps:

 

Baltimore: WMAR-2, NBC to ABC; WBAL-11, CBS to NBC; WJZ-13, ABC to CBS

Denver: KCNC-4, NBC to CBS; KMGH-7, CBS to ABC; KUSA-9, ABC to NBC

(Scripps-owned at the time)

 

CBS and NBC also conducted business between each other during that same mid-90s time frame, mostly trading stations for each other--Philadelphia's WCAU-10 went from being CBS-owned to NBC-owned, while CBS got back in exchange NBC's Denver (the aforementioned KCNC) and Salt Lake City (KUTV) stations, and the two networks also traded station frequencies in Miami (NBC's WTVJ moving from channel 4 to 6, and CBS' WCIX-6 becoming WFOR-4).

[RyanMcD29]

3 hours ago, the admiral said:

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/12/13/18137938/nfl-fox-deal-rupert-murdoch-1993-john-madden-terry-bradshaw-howie-long-jimmy-johnson-cbs-nbc

 

I'm fascinated by the NFL's TV realignment in the '90s, particularly how the Packers moving from CBS to Fox meant channel 6 in Milwaukee did the same, leaving the market CBS-less for a few months until channel 58 (that high!) took over. Also, NBC's successive losses of the AFC and Seinfeld made them go all in on the awful Friends, and with too much money tied up in Friends, NBC cheaply filled programming hours with reality shows, one of them starring that one guy. 

 

If CBS didn't poach baseball from NBC, maybe lots of bad things don't happen.

Other fascinating thing with NBC is how they went from THE home of sports in the mid-90s, having NFL/NBA/MLB plus Olympics, to having nothing but the Olympics and half a NASCAR package (with Turner picking up most of the production slack) in a span of 10 years. And yeah, that post kinda sums out how they got there, but that had to be the biggest stark contrast in sports properties. NBC Sports only really recovered when they got the SNF deal struck. 

[Crabcake]

4 hours ago, the admiral said:

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/12/13/18137938/nfl-fox-deal-rupert-murdoch-1993-john-madden-terry-bradshaw-howie-long-jimmy-johnson-cbs-nbc

 

I'm fascinated by the NFL's TV realignment in the '90s, particularly how the Packers moving from CBS to Fox meant channel 6 in Milwaukee did the same, leaving the market CBS-less for a few months until channel 58 (that high!) took over. Also, NBC's successive losses of the AFC and Seinfeld made them go all in on the awful Friends, and with too much money tied up in Friends, NBC cheaply filled programming hours with reality shows, one of them starring that one guy. 

 

If CBS didn't poach baseball from NBC, maybe lots of bad things don't happen.

Fascinating is the perfect word. I really enjoyed this read. 

[dfwabel]

4 hours ago, the admiral said:

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/12/13/18137938/nfl-fox-deal-rupert-murdoch-1993-john-madden-terry-bradshaw-howie-long-jimmy-johnson-cbs-nbc

 

I'm fascinated by the NFL's TV realignment in the '90s, particularly how the Packers moving from CBS to Fox meant channel 6 in Milwaukee did the same, leaving the market CBS-less for a few months until channel 58 (that high!) took over. Also, NBC's successive losses of the AFC and Seinfeld made them go all in on the awful Friends, and with too much money tied up in Friends, NBC cheaply filled programming hours with reality shows, one of them starring that one guy. 

 

If CBS didn't poach baseball from NBC, maybe lots of bad things don't happen.

Same thing occurred in Detroit as they bought Channel 62 and they still don't have a News Division.

[Digby]

55 minutes ago, RyanMcD29 said:

Other fascinating thing with NBC is how they went from THE home of sports in the mid-90s, having NFL/NBA/MLB plus Olympics, to having nothing but the Olympics and half a NASCAR package (with Turner picking up most of the production slack) in a span of 10 years. And yeah, that post kinda sums out how they got there, but that had to be the biggest stark contrast in sports properties. NBC Sports only really recovered when they got the SNF deal struck. 

 

Recovered well, though; their Premier League coverage is top-notch, they were much better at MLS when they briefly had that, their regional networks seem solid. Sick of Doc Emrick's deal, though.

[The_Admiral]

Is it UH THING for CBS local news to wildly underperform? Channel 2 in Chicago has been almost a rumor for at least 20 years now. At one point their news department stopped producing local morning news and turned the timeslot over to disgraced sports talk radio host and giardiniera pitchman Mike North, and I believe several weekend newscasts have been replaced with infomercials. I think what newscasts remain sometimes end up in fifth place behind WGN and Fox.

[Crabcake]

10 minutes ago, Digby said:

 

Recovered well, though; their Premier League coverage is top-notch, they were much better at MLS when they briefly had that, their regional networks seem solid. Sick of Doc Emrick's deal, though.

Couldn’t agree more. Arlo White is among the top play by play men in sports currently. They have a great “off-pitch” group of analysts in the Robbies, Kyle Martino, and others. Rebecca Lowe is a fantastic host, and the Men in Blazers are brilliant. All around it makes for a very pleasant viewing experience here in the States. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

NBC's PL coverage may be the best show coverage of any sport in the US. NBA on TNT is great for different reasons, but that's more if you like watching hosts be cruel to each other.

[RyanMcD29]

49 minutes ago, Digby said:

 

Recovered well, though; their Premier League coverage is top-notch, they were much better at MLS when they briefly had that, their regional networks seem solid. Sick of Doc Emrick's deal, though.

Yep, the revitalization they've had since landing said SNF deal has really shown. Best of the NFL bunch, Premier League is probably the best coverage of a sport in US TV as DG alluded to, their NASCAR coverage is great, NHL is hit-or-miss but mainly good

[MadmanLA]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

Is it UH THING for CBS local news to wildly underperform? Channel 2 in Chicago has been almost a rumor for at least 20 years now. At one point their news department stopped producing local morning news and turned the timeslot over to disgraced sports talk radio host and giardiniera pitchman Mike North, and I believe several weekend newscasts have been replaced with infomercials. I think what newscasts remain sometimes end up in fifth place behind WGN and Fox.

 

Our CBS 2 here in Los Angeles also been an underperformer for decades as well (pretty much most of old-line CBS O&Os for that matter)...at least since the '80s, it's always been either ABC (7), NBC (4), KTLA (5), or Fox (11) at the top of the local news ratings.  KTLA, much like WGN in Chicago, is a news-heavy station (has been a somewhat news-dominate station since it signed on in 1947), and their morning news program has dominated the local news ratings pretty much the last 25 years or so, with sometimes Fox 11's Good Day L.A. taking over the top spot, but one or the other always beat the Today Show, Good Morning America, and CBS This Morning no matter what.  Sometimes, even the two big Spanish news-producing stations in town, Univision 34 and Telemundo 52, will beat KCBS in the local news ratings.  

[dfwabel]

5 hours ago, MadmanLA said:

 

You and me both...if you really break it down to its core, the Fox-NFL TV deal changed the entire American TV business forever.  At the same time you had stations that not only defecting to Fox, but to an lesser extent, ABC and NBC were also either working on keeping its longtime affiliations together as well, and in some cases, locking-up group-wide affiliations between the station groups and networks.  I've done my share of reading and research on this stuff for years...of all the NFC markets at the time (and remember that Fox's first year of NFL coverage was also the final season the Rams [and Raiders] played in greater Los Angeles), Phoenix was probably the most affected, because four of its major commercial TV stations were involved, and each of them either swapped, lost, or a gained a network affiliation:

 

KTVK Channel 3: ABC to independent

KPHO 5: independent to CBS

KSAZ 10: CBS to Fox

KNXV 15: Fox to ABC

 

Channel 15 was/still is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, and Scripps signed a group-wide affiliation deal with ABC around 1994, mainly to keep ABC on its Detroit (WXYZ) and Cleveland (WEWS) stations.  This same deal also saw KNXV and two other Scripps-owned Fox affiliates (KSHB Kansas City and WFTS Tampa) go to ABC, while Cincinnati's WCPO went from CBS to ABC.  The Scripps-ABC agreement, in turn, also played a huge role in the Big Three network affiliates in both Baltimore and Denver conducting three-way swaps:

 

Baltimore: WMAR-2, NBC to ABC; WBAL-11, CBS to NBC; WJZ-13, ABC to CBS

Denver: KCNC-4, NBC to CBS; KMGH-7, CBS to ABC; KUSA-9, ABC to NBC

(Scripps-owned at the time)

 

CBS and NBC also conducted business between each other during that same mid-90s time frame, mostly trading stations for each other--Philadelphia's WCAU-10 went from being CBS-owned to NBC-owned, while CBS got back in exchange NBC's Denver (the aforementioned KCNC) and Salt Lake City (KUTV) stations, and the two networks also traded station frequencies in Miami (NBC's WTVJ moving from channel 4 to 6, and CBS' WCIX-6 becoming WFOR-4).

Tampa had a four channel change too:

WTVT: CBS to Fox

WTSP: ABC to CBS

WTOG: Fox back to Independent

WFTS: Independent to ABC

[Digby]

Channel 4 in Boston has been a CBS O&O since 1995 and has underperformed that entire time. Weird because their news-radio AM station, as far as I know, remains the standard for that sort of thing around here. An NBC O&O started up in Boston a couple years ago and I don't think ever got traction, either. The ABC affiliate's always been the popular one.

 

When I lived in a much smaller Northeastern market that surprisingly had three local affiliates, though, I will say the CBS one was the most successful -- perhaps because it was the only one that was locally owned, not owned by some Hearst-type chain.

[dfwabel]

On 12/13/2018 at 3:55 PM, DG_Now said:

NBC's PL coverage may be the best show coverage of any sport in the US. NBA on TNT is great for different reasons, but that's more if you like watching hosts be cruel to each other.

NBC covers the Premier League really well, but IMO the standard is CBS's PGA Tour coverage, especially during the week of a Major.

[Digby]

People try say white privilege doesn’t exist, but if that’s true then explain why Brian Scalabrine is still here.

[Digby]

Who expected the viral heartwarming tearjerker of the 2018 holiday season to have a Charles Barkley angle?

 

https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2018/12/14/lin-wang-charles-barkley