Middle of the week and time for some links for you. Lots of good stuff today.
Let’s start with the Dennis & Callahan contract situation. Notice I’m no longer putting the lockout, holdout, whatever it is in the headline. Jessica Heslam of the Boston Herald writes in her Messenger blog that D & C did meet with Entercom last week. Still no word if they’re meeting again this week.
Are you ready for some college football? The season does begin August 30. ESPN wants you to be ready so it’s going to air a 25 hour, that’s twenty five hours, one full day plus one hour pregame show in advance of the LSU-Mississippi State game. It’ll begin at 7 p.m., August 29 on ESPN. SportsCenter will air in its regular time, but be more slanted towards college football. Rece Davis will be the host of the 25 hour pregame show. USA Today’s Michael Hiestand reports about ESPN’s plans. And Hiestand also adds that the CBS Sportsline website has been rebranded as CBS Sports.com just in time for NFL season.
By the way, CBS has announced its NFL announcing lineup for this season. And this marks the 40th year of the NFL Today.
The New York Times’ Richard Sandomir writes about former Pittsburgh Steeler coach Bill Cowher who joins the NFL Today this season. Pete Dougherty of the Albany (NY) Times-Union also writes about Cowher.
Jim Williams of the DC/Baltimore Examiner says this Saturday’s Redskins-Ravens game will be covered by the two teams’ TV production units.
The Zanesville (OH) Times-Recorder picks up a story from the nearby Lancaster Eagle-Gazette that Time Warner Cable will not air any of the first two Ohio State games which are scheduled to be televised by the Big Ten Network. From Ed Runyan of the Youngstown (OH) Vindicator says neither Time Warner or Armstrong Cable are going to pick up BTN. Mike Pramik of the Columbus Dispatch writes that fans are racing against the clock to get DirecTV dishes installed in time for the August 30 launch.
And to show how ridiculous the battle between the Big Ten Network and the cable companies has become, Comcast has been exposed for hiring a public relations firm to post anti-BTN messages on fan boards. Congrats to AOL’s Fanhouse blog for finding this. And this anti-BTN website is supposedly done a “fan”, but it appears to be done by Comcast. It looks too professional to be done by just one person. Yes, websites can look well done by one person, but this looks to be too slick.
Mike Dougherty of the Journal-News of Lohud, NY writes that officials from CBS and NBC Sports don’t know how to gage the ratings for the upcoming PGA FedEx Cup playoffs.
That’s it for now. I’ll be back later with more.
