Fang's Bites

Some Selection Sunday Sports Media Thoughts

On this NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday, it’s time to present some sports media thoughts and as usual, they come in bullet form.

• With college basketball’s conference tournaments wrapping up and we get ready for three awesome weeks of the NCAA Tournament, ESPN’s coverage of Championship Week (11 days in reality) has been nothing short of stellar. Whether it be the mid-major tournaments or the BCS conferences, for the most part, the production of the games has been clean, and the transitions from game to game have been quite good. Some of the announcing on the mid-major tournaments have been lacking, but overall, it’s been good. I wish CBS/Turner could bring over the Big East team of Sean McDonough, Jay Bilas and Bill Raftery as one of its crews. Sean and Jay have worked for CBS in the past and Raft currently works with Uncle Verne Lundquist on the Tournament, but I feel Sean, Jay and Raft give ESPN its best college basketball team.

  The studio with Rece Davis leading as the main host along with Karl Ravech and Ryan Burr have done well. I like Hubert Davis as one of the studio analysts, but Digger Phelps has been grating on me in recent years.

  But overall, I give ESPN an A for its Championship Week coverage. College basketball is one of the sports that the Alleged Worldwide Leader does well from beginning to end.

• With CBS/Turner taking over the main college basketball stage starting on Tuesday, it means Jim Nantz will be the lead announcer once again. Up until Saturday when he called the Big Ten Tournament semifinals, he had only called one regular season game this season. In recent years, Nantz has called one regular season college basketball game. Granted, he’s busy in December and January calling the NFL and he also does the PGA Tour’s West Coast swing in February. But is it necessary to sacrifice college basketball in the process? I’ve gotten on Joe Buck for calling half of the MLB on Fox schedule, but in Nantz’s case, it’s even less.

  I think it’s time for CBS to name either Kevin Harlan or Ian Eagle as the #1 college basketball play-by-play man or have Jim Nantz commit to more games. CBS can contend that by the time the NCAA Tournament ends, Nantz will have called 12 games, but that’s not good enough.

  If ESPN had the tournament, it would have Dan Shulman as the lead and he would have called over 20 regular season games along with the ACC Tournament. That’s what the lead announcer should do, call a full slate of regular season games, not just one. Just as I do with Joe Buck on Fox’s MLB schedule, I will keep track of how many regular season college basketball games Jim Nantz calls for CBS.

• Lastly, I want to give shoutouts to two Friends of Fang’s Bites for work over the last two days. Jen Royle made her first appearance on Comcast SportsNet New England’s Sports Tonight program on Friday night. She discussed baseball with co-hosts Michael Holley and Lou Merloni. I thought she did a very good job and looked comfortable on the air. Here’s hoping for more appearances on CSN for Jen. And CSN should not have Merloni co-host. Brutal.

  On Saturday, Courtney Fallon had the rare extended local sports segment on WLNE (ABC6) in Providence, a whopping six and a half minutes. And she used the time wisely focusing on the RI high school championship hockey and basketball games. This is the way local sports can differentiate itself from ESPN and not lose time by keeping hyperlocal and finding compelling stories. Courtney did a bang up job in her segment.

Just three topics for Sunday. I hope you’ve turned your clocks ahead one hour. Back later tonight with NCAA Tournament announcing assignments.

Some Tuesday Morning Sports Media Thoughts

I haven’t written a sports media thoughts post in quite some time. I owe you one do let’s do this without further delay. As always, they come in bullet form.

• Last night’s BCS National Championship Game between Alabama and LSU was another dull affair, just like their first game in the regular season. ESPN did its best to step up for the game. Brent Musburger seemed to be in hype mode more than usual. Kirk Herbstreit was on his game as analyst. As Alabama’s defense was in lockdown mode, not allowing LSU past mid-field until midway of the 4th quarter, Brent and Kirk were quick to point out the differences in approach by coaches Nick Saban and Les Miles.Production of the game was also championship-worthy. Replays were sharp and close calls were resolved through ESPN showing the correct angles.However, ESPN overused last year’s BCS National Championship Game coaches, Gene Chizik of Auburn and Chip Kelly of Oregon. Both were dull and in need of personality transfusions. ESPN barely used their own analysts for College GameDay.Because the game was so dull, Musburger could not make a tie-in to sponsor Allstate as he did last year for Tostitos. He did overuse “Honey Badger.” What last night’s game did was to assist the skeptics’ screams for a college football playoff or at least a Plus One game. Overall, I give ESPN a B+ for the game.
• Still no word on whether NESN is any closer to a replacement for Heidi Watney as Red Sox field reporter. Of the candidates NESN has conducted interviews and those I’ve been able to confirm through several sources include Erin Hawksworth of Fox Seattle, Courtney Fallon of ABC6 in Providence, and Britt McHenry from WJLA-TV in Washington. I told you last month that Friend of Fang’s Bites Jen Royle was interviewed and is not believed to be a candidate at this time. If anything happens, I’ll certainly let you know.
• You have to believe that CBS is happy to be riding the Tim Tebow wave as it heads to Foxboro, MA this weekend as Denver takes on the New England Patriots in the NFL Divisional Playoff round. The only game during Wild Card Weekend to see massive gains over last year was Sunday’s Pittsburgh-Denver game, garnering an amazing 25.9/43 overnight number for CBS. This would mark the 5th straight week CBS and its number one team, Jim Nantz and Phil Simms will have called the Broncos and Tebow. No matter how you feel about Tebow, he draws ratings and makes people watch. I don’t expect Saturday night’s game to draw near the Wild Card ratings because Saturday is not a big TV night, however, if Denver-New England is close going down to the wire, expect big numbers.
• Here’s looking forward to ESPN2/Tennis Channel’s coverage of the Australian Open starting Sunday night. Coverage will begin every night at 7 p.m. ET. Finals will take place in the wee hours of the morning at 3:30 a.m. on the East Coast, but it will lead to some very good tennis. The 16 hour time difference between Melbourne and the US Eastern time zone means for some disjointed viewing, but it’s always fun to see the summer weather from the Southern Hemisphere. Here’s looking forward to hearing from Chris Fowler, Cliff Drysdale, Pam Shriver, Patrick McEnroe, Darren Cahill, Bill Macatee, Martina Navratilova and Justin Gimelstob for two weeks.

And that’s going to it for the thoughts this morning.

Courtney Fallon (@Fallon87) Joins WLNE in Providence

Normally, I don’t do local news hires on the blog. Media Bistro’s TVSpy usually keeps track of the local and national TV news very well. But today, I’m going to put this up because one, it’s my home market of Providence and two, the person is a friend of mine. So for this one day and one day only, I’ll put this information here.

WLNE, the ABC affiliate in Providence (ABC6), has officially announced the hiring of Courtney Fallon as its weekend sports anchor. She was previously a news writer at Boston’s WHDH-TV. In addition, Courtney has worked at 98.5 The Sports Hub where she was the first on-air female voice. She’s also worked at Comcast SportsNet New England, ESPN Radio and Sirius NFL Radio.

Courtney began working at WLNE earlier this month and has been covering the New England Patriots as well as the other local teams in the Southern New England area. Congrats to Courtney and I wish her nothing but success during her time in Providence.

We’re Experiencing Technical Difficulties…

Tonight, I’m tuning into the local news in Providence, RI when I see Channel 6, the ABC affiliate here, run a Frazier rerun. Did ABC6 all of a sudden cancel its 11 p.m. newscast? Did the channel decide to change its affiliation from ABC at the last minute? No!

But the channel is saying, “We are currently experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by” on the bottom of the screen.

I wanted to check out the weather forecast as we’re expecting some snow on Thursday, but I certainly didn’t expect to see “Frazier”. ABC6′s ratings at 11 p.m. aren’t necessarily great as compared to its competition, NBC10 and WPRI-TV, but maybe airing Frazier reruns at 11 p.m. might not be a bad idea.

Back in the 1990′s, I was working for WPRI and we were tipped off one day that ABC6′s news director was going to anchor the noon news because there was no one available to do so. So we rolled tape and gathered to watch her. It was a train wreck. I’m not saying ABC6 has a history of train wrecks, but I’m sure those in the newsroom tonight are frustrated as hell not being able to run its 11 p.m. newscast tonight. Very strange.

UPDATE, 11:25 p.m. – Channel 6 News has finally hit the air. The only explanation, “We apologize for the technical difficulties.” Apparently, the channel will hit Nightline late.