I was going to go to bed, but there are a couple of items that caught my eye so instead of waiting until the morning, I figured I would give them to you now.
The Sports Media Watch reports that the NL Wild Card Playoff game got a pretty decent rating for TBS Monday night, this despite having the Patriots-Bengals as competition. Multichannel News says this was the 5th highest watched program on TBS this year.
Neil Best in his Newsday Watch This! blog reports that ESPN and MLB have resolved their silly little dispute and the network will have a presence at the World Series in exchange for promoting the postseason on TBS and Fox.
Tim Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that the MLB playoffs on TBS are part of philosophy shift for baseball on the channel. Danielle Sessa of Bloomberg writes that TBS is putting as many League Division Series games closer to primetime in an attempt to maximize the viewing audience. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s Judd Zulgad says TBS is going beyond the Atlanta Braves to bring the MLB postseason to viewers, and he notes that Comcast, Charter and Mediacom have yet to come to an agreement to carry TBS HD. But in Milwaukee, Tim Cuprisin of the Journal Sentinel writes that Time Warner Cable will pick up the HD feed of TBS. David Brooks of the Nashua (NH) Telegraph reports that Comcast will feature TBS HD for its customers, but not for former customers of Adelphia Cable, at least not yet. Still no word on TBS HD for Chicago, Detroit or Denver.
John Consoli of Mediaweek talks about the TBS Hot Corner site.
Cubs WGN and Comcast SportsNet analyst Bob Brenly refuses to pick a winner a winner in the Cubs-Arizona series. You remember that Brenly used to manage the D’Backs and won the 2001 World Series with Arizona.
Alex Weprin of Broadcasting & Cable magazine says ESPN is ready to air a four part reality series on a Louisiana high school football team.
Five years ago, CBC tried to drop Hockey Night in Canada host Ron MacLean after a contract dispute. Only after advertisers intervened and a public outcry was he brought back. Well, CBC must have done right by MacLean in the latest talks because he’s signed a new 7 year contract as the Toronto Star’s Chris Zelkovich tells us. William Houston in the Toronto Globe and Mail has another version of the story. And I would be remiss if I didn’t post the CBC story.
Alan Pergament of the Buffalo News writes that long time hockey analyst Harry Neale will be doing games closer to home as he trades the Maple Leafs for the Sabres this season, but Neale will still do games on Hockey Night in Canada as well.
For some hot pictures of the lovely Stacy Kiebler, click here. Don’t delay.
I’ll have more links later.
