I have some releases to post. Some of these came in last week, but were not necessarily time sensitive, so let’s get these up now as I’ve finished my work for the day.
I’ll start with ESPN which says the ratings for college football this season were significantly higher than years past.
ESPN & ESPN2 College Football Games and Studio Programs Post Significant Audience Growth
ESPN and ESPN2 college football games and studio shows posted significant audience growth over last year, highlighted by:
- ESPN’s most-viewed season since 1994, highlighted by two of the network’s three most-viewed college football games (regular-season and bowls) and the most-viewed Thursday night telecast ever;
- ESPN2’s most-viewed season ever, highlighted by its most-viewed game ever;
- The most-viewed season for ESPN’s College GameDay;
- Double-digit growth for ESPN’s College Football Final and College Football Live studio programs.
ESPNESPN averaged 2,144,000 households, 2,874,000 viewers and a 2.2 rating, making it the most-viewed season since 1994 (2,197,000 households and 3,107,000 viewers) and highest-rated since 1999 (2.3 rating). This year saw increases of 11% (vs. 1,931,000), 12% (vs. 2,561,000) and 10% (vs. 2.0), respectively, over last year.
Game highlights include:
- USC at Ohio State: ESPN’s most-viewed college football game ever – regular-season and bowls — and highest-rated in 15 years (7,243,000 households and 10,586,000 viewers, based on a 7.3 rating).
- Florida State at Miami: ESPN’s third most-viewed regular season college football game, regular season and bowls (5,820,000 households and 8,406,000 viewers, based on a 5.9 rating).
- Oregon State at Oregon: ESPN’s most-viewed Thursday night game ever (4,220,000 households and 6,691,000 viewers, based on 4.3 rating).
- Boise State at Fresno State: ESPN’s second most-viewed and second highest-rated Friday night college football game (2,401,000 households and 3,090,000 viewers, based on a 2.4 rating).
- Indiana at Iowa: ESPN’s second most-viewed noon Saturday college football telecast (3,194,000 households and 4,014,000 viewers based on a 3.2 rating).
ESPN2ESPN2 experienced its most-viewed season ever, averaging 1,110,000 households and 1,492,000 viewers increases of 8% (vs. 1,028,000) and 11% (vs. 1,350,000). ESPN2 averaged a 1.1 rating for both seasons. Game highlights include:
- Pittsburgh at West Virginia: ESPN2’s most-viewed college football game ever, regular season and bowls (2,894,000 households and 4,137,000 viewers, based on a 2.9 rating).
- West Virginia at Cincinnati: ESPN2’s fifth most-viewed and highest-rated regular-season college football game (2,600,000 households, 3,638,000 viewers and a 2.6 rating).
- Florida at Kentucky: ESPN2’s most-viewed and highest-rated Saturday college football game (2,551,000 households, 3,643,000 viewers and a 2.6 rating).
College GameDayESPN’s Saturday morning College GameDay posted its most-viewed season ever, averaging 1,711,000 households, 2,034,000 viewers and a 1.7 rating for increases of 14% (vs. 1,504,000), 12% (vs. 1,815,000) and 13% (vs. 1.5). The previous high was set in 2007.College Football FinalCollege Football Final, ESPN’s Saturday night studio program generally airing at midnight ET, averaged 1,198,000 households, 1,460,000 viewers and a 1.2 rating, marking increases of 15% (vs. 1,038,000), 17% (vs. 1,250,000) and 9% (vs. 1.1).
College Football LiveCollege Football Live, ESPN’s weekday afternoon college football studio show, is averaging 437,000 households and 478,000 viewers for increases of 14% (vs. 385,000) and 12% (vs. 428,000). The show, which will be aired through the BCS National Championship, is currently averaging a 0.4, equal to last year at this point.
ESPN has announced the coaches for its All-America High School Football Game on January 2.
Coaches Set for 2010 Under Armour All-America High School Football Game in St. Petersburg on Jan. 2
Ted Marchibroda to Lead Team Blur and Sam Wyche to Head Team Nitro; Game Live on ESPN
Former NFL head coaches Ted Marchibroda and Sam Wyche will lead the nation’s top high school seniors in the 2010 All-America High School Football Game. The third annual game will take place at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Saturday, Jan. 2, at 11 a.m. ET, and will be televised live on ESPN. Marchibroda will serve as head coach of Team Blur (white jersey), while Wyche will coach Team Nitro (black jersey). Both coaching staffs, selected by ESPN Scouts, Inc., will consist of former NFL coaches acting as offensive and defensive coordinators, with support from 19 high school coaches who have players participating in the game. The rosters will feature the nation’s top high school football prospects, according to the ESPNU 150 player rankings.
Marchibroda is a former quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Chicago Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals). He also served as head coach of the Baltimore Colts (now the Indianapolis Colts) and was the first head coach of the Baltimore Ravens (1996-98). Also, he was the offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams (now St. Louis Rams) and Washington Redskins, as well as the Buffalo Bills during their Super Bowl appearances in 1990 and 1991. He will be assisted by Dave Levy on offense and Rex Norris on defense. Levy won four national titles on staff with USC and coached in eight Rose Bowls. He also coached in the NFL with San Diego and Detroit. Norris has more than 30 years of experience, including coaching in college at Oklahoma, Florida, Tennessee and Texas. He also spent 12 years coaching in the NFL.
The inventor of the no-huddle offense, Wyche is the former head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals (1984-91), a team he led to the Super Bowl in 1988 on his way to earning NFL Coach of the Year honors. He also served as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1992-95. Wyche began his coaching career with the San Francisco 49ers with legendary coach Bill Walsh. He directed the 49ers’ passing game including Joe Montana from 1979-82. Wyche’s coordinators will be Larry Kennan on offense and George Dyer on defense. Kennan is the executive director of the NFL Coaches Association. Kennan had several NFL coaching stops, including quarterbacks coach for the Los Angeles Raiders (1983-87); offensive coordinator of the Seattle Seahawks (1992-94) and offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots. Dyer has more than 20 years’ experience coaching defensive lines in the NFL (Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, Los Angeles Rams) and also coached at Arizona State and Michigan State.
Three-time NFL Special Teams Coach of the Year Joe Avezzano will serve as special teams coach for both teams. The individual position coaches will be high school head coaches who have players in the Jan. 2 game. Each coach will be responsible for his respective position of expertise and will help coach the team that includes his player.
The coaches and players will also participate in several activities surrounding the game, including daily practice sessions that will be televised live on ESPNU on Wednesday, Dec. 30 and Thursday, Dec. 31, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., and the Skills Challenge on Friday, Jan. 1, at 9 p.m. on ESPN2.
Of the more than 80 players selected by ESPN Scouts, Inc., to participate in the All-America High School Football Game, several are ranked among the ESPNU 150: No. 2 Jordan Hicks, OLB Lakota West (Ohio); No. 5 Lamarcus Joyner, CB, St. Thomas Aquinas (Fla.); No. 6 Jeff Luc, ILB, Treasure Coast (Fla.); No. 7 Michael Dyer, RB, Little Rock Christian (Ark.); No. 9 Darius White, WR, Dunbar (Texas); No. 11 Demar Dorsey, S, Boyd Anderson (Fla.); No. 12 Chris Dunkley, WR, Pahokee (Fla.); No. 14 Taylor Bible, DT, Guyer (Texas); No. 17 Mack Brown, RB, Martin Luther King (Ga.); No. 18 DeMarco Cobbs, ATH, Tulsa Central (Okla.); No. 19 Jordan James, RB, Corona (Calif.) and No. 20 DeMarcus Milliner, CB, Stanhope Elmore (Ala.). Team Blur and Team Nitro rosters will be unveiled on the ESPNU Selection Show Wednesday, Dec. 9, at 7:30 PM.
TICKETS: Tickets for the game are available for $10 throug
h www.Ticketmaster.com.
About the Game
The High School All-America Football Game, an annual all-star football competition spotlighting the nation’s top high school seniors, debuted on Jan. 5, 2008, on ABC, at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Organized in conjunction with Intersport, a leading sports and entertainment media and marketing company with over 20 years experience, the event will be televised live to a national audience on ESPN from Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. Some notable alumni of the game include USC’s Matt Barkley, Georgia’s A.J. Green and Alabama’s Julio Jones.
Coming up on December 20, Robin Meade of Headline News, one of my favorite anchors, hosts a one hour special with three Turner Sports analysts talking about the biggest stories of the year, not only in sports, but in news and entertainment.
HLN Teams Up with Turner Sports for With All Due Respect —
A Roundtable Discussion on the Biggest Stories of 2009
One-Hour Special to Premiere on HLN Dec. 20,
Hosted by Robin Meade and Featuring Charles Barkley, Dennis Eckersley and Kyle Petty
HLN and Turner Sports today announced the premiere of a new, one-hour special called With All Due Respect, featuring HLN anchor Robin Meade, TNT NBA analyst Charles Barkley, TBS MLB analyst Dennis Eckersley and TNT NASCAR analyst Kyle Petty. The special will include the trio giving their opinions on topics ranging from sports to world news, entertainment and current events. With All Due Respect will premiere on HLN on Sunday, Dec. 20 at 10 p.m. (ET).
“Charles, Dennis and Kyle have diverse interests, and their perspectives reach beyond sports,” said David Levy, president of ad sales, distribution and sports, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. “We look forward to bringing them together with Robin Meade for an exciting year-end show. This special is a terrific way for Turner Sports to join forces with HLN for a unique program.”
“The Turner Broadcasting roster includes exceptional talent, from news anchors to sports legends, and With All Due Respect is a great way to showcase that talent,” commented Bill Galvin, SVP, HLN. “As the News and Views network, HLN is known for offering a wide range of opinions that get viewers talking – and this special will have no shortage of opinions.”
With All Due Respect will include interaction and questions from the live studio audience, along with questions from fans submitted through CNN iReport, the network’s user-generated news community. To submit an iReport, go to www.cnn.com/robin and click on the With All Due Respect assignment. In addition, fans will have the opportunity to give their thoughts and opinions on a number of the show’s topics via Facebook (HLN, NBA on TNT, NASCAR and TBS Hot Corner fan pages) and Twitter (@NBAonTNT, @NASCAR, @TBSHotCorner).
Robin Meade is the anchor of HLN’s morning show, Morning Express with Robin Meade. Among other stories, Meade anchored the network’s coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the January 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama, and the July 2009 coverage of Michael Jackson’s memorial event. In July 2008, she scored the exclusive first interview with freed American hostages – at their request – after their release from Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) captors. In June 2009, Meade performed a tandem skydive with President George H.W. Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, to commemorate the former president’s 85th birthday. Meade is also the face of HLN’s “Salute to Troops” segment, a daily message to U.S. troops using photos and videos sent in by their loved ones. Meade’s first book¸ Morning Sunshine! How to Radiate Confidence and Feel It Too, was an instant New York Times bestseller upon its release in September 2009.
Charles Barkley is an NBA Hall of Famer who has spent 10 years as a TNT NBA analyst on the three-time Emmy® Award-winning Inside the NBA studio show. A 16-year NBA veteran and 11-time NBA All-Star, Barkley is equally well-known for his irreverent humor and wide-ranging interests outside of basketball. Sports Illustrated’s 2002 “Personality of the Year,” Barkley is the author of three books: Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man? (2005), I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It (2002) and Outrageous! (1992).
Dennis Eckersley is a Hall of Famer whose 24-year career in Major League Baseball includes time with the Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Oakland Athletics, and St. Louis Cardinals. Best known as one of the all-time greatest relief pitchers, Eckersley also threw a no-hitter in 1977 when he was a starting pitcher. Eckersley has had a successful post-retirement career, becoming a fan favorite through his work on TBS’s MLB regular season and Postseason coverage as well as on the New England Sports Network (NESN).
Kyle Petty is a third-generation NASCAR driver, following in the footsteps of his father, Richard Petty, and grandfather, Lee Petty. A 30-year racing veteran, Petty now serves as a NASCAR on TNT studio and race analyst, bringing energy, humor and insight. In addition his passion for racing, Petty has committed himself to expansive charity work, including the Chick-fil-A Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America and as the founder of the Victory Junction Gang Camp, which helps terminally ill children. The camp has locations in Level Cross, N.C. and in Kansas City, Mo.
Golf Channel has announced a second season of The Haney Project which will air in October.
GOLF CHANNEL BEGINS PRODUCTION ON SEASON TWO OF ORIGINAL HIT SERIES THE HANEY PROJECT STARRING EMMY AWARD-WINNER RAY ROMANO
The Haney Project Premieres on March 1 at 9 p.m. ET on GOLF CHANNEL
ORLANDO, Fla. (December 3, 2009) – GOLF CHANNEL has announced production is underway for the highly anticipated second season of its most buzzed about original series The Haney Project. The new season chronicles The Haney Project’s second celebrity golf student, Everybody Loves Raymond star and Emmy Award-winner Ray Romano, as he attempts to improve his golf game under the guidance of one of the world’s best golf instructors and Tiger Woods’ swing coach Hank Haney. The seven-part series will premiere on March 1, 2010, at 9 p.m. ET on GOLF CHANNEL.
Romano follows on the heels of NBA Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley who starred in The Haney Project’s first season, which marked the highest-rated launch of an original series in GOLF CHANNEL history. The second season will follow the same entertaining format that made the premiere season of The Haney Project a critical and ratings success. As an avid golfer, the new season chronicles Romano’s quest to break an 18-hole score of 80 with the help of Haney’s expertise. Shooting is taking place over the next few months at various locations, which already have included The Ray Romano and Kevin James Celebrity Golf Classic in Los Angeles, Calif., and the Hank Haney Golf Ranch in Lewisville, Texas.
“We are thrilled to have top entertainer Ray Romano on the second season of The Haney Project,” said Tom Stathakes, GOLF CHANNEL senior vice president of programming, production and operations. “Romano and Haney will not only be great for golf fans, but will introduce Golf Channel to a whole new audience of entertainment fans.”
The Haney Project is part of GOLF CHANNEL’s aggressive, original programming development slate, which has garnered a ratings boost and generated industry attention with its roster of high-profile talent. Other original programming standouts for the network include Uneven Fairways, hosted by Samuel L. Jackson; Golf in America, hosted by film and television actor Anthony Anderson (Law & Order, Transformers); and the upcoming series Being John Daly, chronicling the infamous golfer on his road to redemption.
Romano’s other television project premieres December 7, when he will executive produce and star in the TNT production, Men of a Certain Age, in which he plays a friendly, slightly neurotic, divorced father of two who had dreams of being a professional golfer but instead owns and runs a party store.
The Haney Project is produced by GOLF CHANNEL in conjunction with The WorkShop, LLC, an independent multi-media production company based in Bryn Mawr, Penn
And Tennis Channel is holding a vote to determine the year’s best Grand Slam Final and the top finishers will be played in order between December 21-28.
TENNIS CHANNEL’S ANNUAL YOU MAKE THE CALL ASKS VIEWERS TO SELECT THE YEAR’S BEST GRAND SLAM FINAL
Fans’ Votes will Determine Nightly Order of Matches
During Eight-Day Countdown Dec. 21-28
Polls are Now Open on www.tennischannel.com
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 7, 2009 – Tennis Channel, the only 24-hour, television-based multimedia destination dedicated to both the professional sport and tennis lifestyle, is continuing its annual tradition of letting Web visitors choose its prime-time lineup during the holiday season. This year’s You Make The Call fan poll asks viewers to select their favorite of the eight men’s and women’s Grand Slam singles finals of 2009. The network will air one of these matches per night over eight nights from Dec. 21-28, arranged according to its online poll results.
Fans can log on to www.tennischannel.com/ymc/ now and vote for their favorite of this year’s Australian Open, French Open Wimbledon and US Open men’s and women’s singles championships. The poll will remain open until Sunday, Dec. 13, at 3 a.m. ET, with highlights of each match are available in the voting area. As in the past, fans are allowed to vote as many times as desired.
After the votes are tallied, Tennis Channel viewers will have the opportunity to see which championship singles match is deemed the best of 2009, as the network’s countdown begins Monday, Dec. 21, at 7 p.m. ET. The first evening will feature the match with the least votes for best of the year, followed by the next least, and so on each night at 7 p.m. ET, until the top vote recipient is aired the following Monday, Dec. 28.
Tennis Channel’s You Make The Call fan poll pays tribute to the network’s milestone year in 2009, in which the network covered the US Open for the first time and as such all four of tennis four Grand Slam events.
The eight Grand Slam singles title matches of 2009 are:
Australian Open:
Rafael Nadal def. Roger Federer (7-5, 3-6, 7-6, 3-6, 6-2)
Serena Williams def. Dinara Safina (6-0, 6-3)
French Open:
Roger Federer def. Robin Soderling (6-1, 7-6, 6-4)
Svetlana Kuznetsova def. Dinara Safina (6-4, 6-2)
Wimbledon:
Roger Federer def. Andy Roddick (5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14)
Serena Williams def. Venus Williams (7-6, 6-2)
US Open:
Juan Martin Del Potro def. Roger Federer (3-6, 7-6, 4-6, 7-6, 6-2)
Kim Clijsters def. Caroline Wozniacki (7-5, 6-3)
I have some more releases coming up.
