Checking around the ‘net for links this evening, I came across a few things that I did not cover earlier today so I’ll give you some stuff before turning in for the evening.
Before going into the links, watching the coverage of the Red Sox Rolling Rally from New England Cable News through MLB.com was ok. Most of the interviews inside Fenway Park came from NESN so I don’t understand why MLB.com did not pick up NESN’s coverage anyway. With NESN being the Red Sox rightsholder and the only broadcasters allowed to do anything in the park while other outlets had to remain outside, it would have behooved MLB.com to pick up NESN unless the channel did not give permission. New England Cable News has a decent stable of reporters including sports anchor Chris Collins and the venerable R.D. Sahl who seems to have been in television since the 1950’s, but gives a nice historic perspective. It wasn’t bad, but I would have preferred to see NESN online. As far as I know, NESN did not offer its live coverage of the Rolling Rally online, but I have recorded it so I can compare it to NECN’s. At least Tom Ellis wasn’t involved otherwise, he might have recited a poem that no one would have wanted to hear.
A quick aside here. I knew someone who used to work at NECN and she told me that Tom would deviate from the teleprompter and the guys in the control room would have no idea where he was going or how long he would take before introducing a report. It would be a miracle if his broadcasts ended on time, but I don’t know if does that anymore. Anyway, let’s get to the links.
I knew there was a reason why I was live blogging TBS Hot Corner for all of its live webcasts during the League Division and National League Championship Series. Besides wanting to see Heather Catlin and Kelly Cross, the show was pretty decent and actually gave some pretty good information. As I mentioned in my posts, the Atlanta segments were well produced while the segments from MLB.com looked like they were produced in a dentist’s office. Well, it seems many of you were watching as well. Neil Best of Newsday blogged today that Sports Business Journal has done a story this week on TBS Hot Corner’s popularity and the online show had a million views during its coverage. Neil put up a picture of Alyssa Milano and while she was involved in Hot Corner, she was not on the live show albeit for one phone call. I cannot link to the Sports Business Journal story because the site requires a subscription, but you can get a four week trial subscription if you so choose.
The Sports Media Watch blog has the overnight ratings for Monday Night Football which had no sports competition from baseball and won the night for cable programs. Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News has more on the ratings for MNF. Kimberly Nordyke of the Hollywood Reporter says 14 million viewers on average watched Monday Night Football.
Last week’s Monday Night Football contest between Indianapolis and Jacksonville was the most watched cable primetime program for the period ending October 28..
Reynolds of Multichannel News adds that TBS and ESPN were tied for the top spot for the cable primetime ratings in October. And Reynolds writes that FSN Southwest hopes that the San Antonio Spurs can pace the channel to the top spot of the NBA Regional Sports Network ratings again.
John Dempsey of Variety writes that TBS saw a 123% increase in viewers in October as compared to a year ago thanks to the MLB Postseason.
Ed Sherman of the Chicago Tribune writes that Fox’s Jay Glazer appears to be the spokesman for Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher.
David Hinckley of the New York Daily News says baseball sleezebag Scott Boras manipulated the media during Game 4 of the World Series on Sunday.
Blogging for Broadcasting & Cable, Jim Cheney says that he doesn’t find Joe Buck and Tim McCarver as objectionable as he used to, but adds Fox crammed the commercials into each World Series game.
Michael McCarthy of USA Today has comments from TNT’s Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith in advance of tonight’s opening of the NBA season.
Gregg Easterbrook tries to tell us in his latest version of “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” that last week’s crazy column on “Good vs. Evil”, a comparison between the New England Patriots (“Evil”) and the Indianapolis Colts (“Good”) was satire (whatever), and he also rails against the NFL Sunday Ticket being on DirecTV. Keep it up, Gregg. You’ll have no friends by the end of the season.
James Fussell of the Kansas City Star writes that the NFL is increasing its marketing to women. Also from the Star, Jeffrey Flanagan says CBS’ Kevin Harlan wishes he could call the Green Bay-Kansas City game this Sunday instead of it being on Fox. Harlan has ties to both teams.
Albert Breer of the Dallas Morning News writes that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is enlisting powerful Texas state legislators in an attempt to get the NFL Network on cable systems in the Lone Star State. The Wisconsin State Legislature is looking at ways to get the NFL Network and the Big Ten Network on state cable systems. Alex Weprin of Broadcasting & Cable writes about the NFL Network’s plans to air 36.5 hours of coverage on the Patriots-Colts game this Sunday. John Consoli of Mediaweek also writes about the NFL Net’s plans for the Pats-Colts. The NFL Network will carry its second college football regular season game this Saturday.
Mike O’Hara of the Detroit News reports that Fox is pulling back two Lions games to prevent NBC from picking them up for primetime.
Diane Sherrer of the Elmira (NY) Star-Gazette says NBC wil
l show the start of the New York City marathon this Saturday on the Today show, then hand it off to NBC Sports.com which will show it live online (don’t forget it’s $4.95).
Nathan Summers of the Greenville (NC) Daily Reflector says MASN is in a dispute with Suddenlink Communications to get its channel shown in the area.
The Business First Journal of Louisville says Churchill Downs will air a daily half hour horse racing preview show online as well as on HRTV. Lenny Shulman of Bloodhorse.com writes that the ratings for the Breeders’ Cup on ESPN last Saturday saw only a marginal increase from last year and a viewership well below NBC’s ratings two years ago. Fred Angst of the Thoroughbred Times has his version of the story.
David King of the San Antonio Express-News writes that the 15 lateral play by Trinity to beat Millsaps can still be seen online, but not on YouTube. It can be seen over at ESPN.com, but of course, you can see it on Fang’s Bites here.
The Danbury (CT) News-Times says the UConn Huskies game against Rutgers will be on ESPNU this weekend, but many across the Nutmeg State will not be able to see the game because the channel is not carried by Comcast.
Plenty of links tonight. Back on Wednesday with more.
