One of our longer editions of the Sports Media Weekly podcast, but we have a lot of things to talk about. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy this episode.
Keith Thibault of Sports Media Journal and I get together with our Third Man In, Ken Schott from the Schenectady Gazette to discuss the following in the News of the Week segment:
- The Launch of Fox Sports 1.
- The Sudden Pick-up of FS1 by DirecTV, Dish Network and Time Warner Cable.
- Fox pursuing Greg Norman as its US Open main analyst.
- NBC Sports coverage plans for the English Premiere League.
- Jason Whitlock suddenly leaving Fox Sports to take a job with ESPN, the same network he trashed in 2006.
- And Ken discussed how a Capital Region sports radio station got duped by an imposter claiming to be former New York Yankees outfielder Shane Spencer.
We have two guest segments, both with sports television executives. The first interview is with Bill Wanger, the Executive Vice President of Research and Programming for Fox Sports.
This is what was discussed:
- The State of Fox Sports
- Why Fox Sports is “fun”
- Why Fox Sports 1 is being launched now.
- The thinking behind obtaining the US Open.
- Comparing the launch of Fox Sports 1 to the launch of the Fox Sports division in 1994
- Whether Fox will be at the table for MLS, NBA and the Big Ten.
The final segment in this podcast is with David Berson, the President of CBS Sports. Among the topics that were raised:
- The State of CBS Sports
- Is CBS Sports “fun”?
- The perception of CBS being on the sidelines while ESPN, Fox and NBC fight it out for major sports properties.
- The future of CBS Sports.
- The growth of CBS Sports Network.
- Whether CBS Sports Network be a player for MLS, NBA and the Big Ten.
- The CBS/Time Warner Cable dispute.
You can see this podcast was action-packed and had plenty of subjects. One thing, there is an echo in the segments with Keith and I and we are working to fix that.
Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes through “Sports Media Journal” or you can hear the podcast right here.
