I’ve been working on my The Amazing Race Asia 3, Episode 1 recap so expect to see that here sometime during the weekend. In the meantime, Hurricane Ike has made landfall in Texas. If you have DirecTV, KHOU in Houston, the CBS affiliate has been placed on Channel 361 so you can watch the coverage there. In addition, a good place for information is the Weather Nerd blog which tracks severe weather and has the latest live radar. You can keep up to date there. Certainly watching the local news coverage is better than watching the national media as the reporters know the area more than the network reporters. It has been tiring work for the reporters who have been up all night trying to provide the latest information. KHOU’s coverage is also live on XM Satellite Radio channel 247 so you can listen if you have XM.
Moving from the Hurricane, let’s go to your links in fantasyland.
Ken Schott from the Schenectady Gazette looks into the strange decision by the local CBS affiliate to originally air Colts-Vikings when Bills-Jags was the natural choice.
Ken adds that because of last night’s rainouts of six games in MLB, there will be plenty of baseball to follow today on TV and radio.
Ken also sent me this link about a local high school rivalry that will be showcased around the world on the intenet. The story is written by Jim Schlitz of the Gazette. Thanks, Ken. The way I wrote that, it makes it sound like the AT&T commercial with Bill Kurtis saying, “I just found the internet!” If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll show you.
There you go. If you’re not aware, Bill Kurtis has been a very successful local news anchor in Chicago and did a stint co-anchoring one of CBS’ many incarnations of its morning show. He’s also hosted many crime shows for A&E including “Cold Cases” and “American Justice”. Why I can write this off the top of my head, I don’t know.
Moving on, Ken McMillan of the Hudson Valley Times Herald-Record says the Czar of the Telestrator, Mike Fratello will join his old NBA on NBC partner, Marv Albert on the YES Network.
The Sports Media Watch says with the baseball playoffs looming, the ratings for MLB on Fox are limping towards October. Well if Fox would treat baseball as one of its showcase sports instead of a bastard stepchild, maybe the ratings would be better.
Tom Van Riper of Forbes magazine says even without the Yankees, Fox Sports President and Executive Producer Ed Goren is confident that there will be national interest in the MLB postseason with the Red Sox, Angels and Cubs.
A couple of things from Jim Williams in the DC/Baltimore Examiner. He talks with talk show host Jerry Coleman about the third sports radio station launching in Bal’more. And Jim says Monday night’s Ravens-Houston game will be seen locally on WJZ and heard on the Ravens radio network.
Jerry Garcia from the San Antonio Express-News explains why the local CBS affiliate won’t be showing the Ravens-Texans game on Monday night.
Barry Horn in the Dallas Morning News is happy that he won’t be watching celebrity interviews during the Cowboys-Eagles game on Monday night.
Thomas Rozwadowski of the Green Bay Press-Gazette got an inside look at ESPN’s production of the Vikings-Packers game last Monday night.
Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News tells us who’s going to be on the sidelines during tonight’s Ohio State-USC game. Not sideline reporters, but the “beautiful people”.
On Thursday, the lovely Linda Cohn of ESPN took part in a chat with the Washington Post people to promote her new book.
Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News says CBS College Sports is invoking scenes from famous sports movies as part of a new promotional campaign.
Stephanie Kang and Suzanne Vranica of the Wall Street Journal talk about NBC selling most of its ads for Super Bowl XLIII.
Matthew Phillips of Newsweek discusses the financial impact of Tom Brady’s injury on the NFL and its TV partners.
Jill Rosen of the Baltimore Sun looks at how Michael Phelps is handling the transition from Olympic athlete to full-blown celebrity.
Prentiss Findlay of the Charleston (SC) Post and Courier says local station WCBD is dropping its local sportscast and will put its sports reports on its website.
There are some strange things going on in Los Angeles during ESPN’s College Gameday show. Audio glitches and a very strange transition out of commercial as the screen went to black after some silence. It happens.
That will do it for now. I could have another update later today.
