Sunday, October 31, 1999
SPORTS ON TV-RADIO
News channel to air prep football pairings
BY JOHN FAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
You've probably never heard of Ohio News Network. ONN is sort of the CNN of Ohio. All Ohio news, all the time. ONN, which has been around for 21/2 years, is not the kind of station I'd spend a lot of time watching.
But ONN has something that I and all other fans of local high school football would be sure to watch. Today at noon, ONN will have the announcement of the Ohio High School Athletic Association's playoff pairings for football.
So if you're a fan of St. Xavier or Mason or Elder or Lebanon, you'll find out where your boys are going and who they will be playing at the moment it's announced.
The format is similar to what CBS does with the NCAA basketball tournament brackets. The pairings show on CBS probably is anticipated as much as any game up to the Final Four, so you can see the appeal of such a show for high school football.
But, in the case of the OHSAA show, if you're a fan of St. X or Mason or Elder, you're not going to see the broadcast locally. Time Warner in Cincinnati will not carry the broadcast on cable.
If you like Lebanon, you're in luck — Lebanon's cable system carries ONN. The only other local cable companies that carry ONN are Time Warner Middletown and Time Warner Wilmington.
Time Warner in Cincinnati is pretty firm on not adding ONN anytime soon.
“We don't have any plans to pick it up,” said Time Warner Cincinnati General Manager Virgil Reed. “We've got our minds on other things.”
To Time Warner, ONN is like a ESPN Classic: Only 2 or 3 percent of its viewers have any real interest. With new channels coming out almost every day, it's impossible to put them all on.
ONN is counting on subscribers to call cable providers like Time Warner and demand ONN.
“We're trying to get out the word on our programming,” said spokesperson Barb Geller. “We're hoping viewers will call and ask that we be added.”
That probably won't happen for today's show. But ONN does have something coming up that would likely play very well in Cincinnati: The OHSAA Division I football semifinals and final.
Time Warner could pick up those games without adding ONN to its station list. The company did so last year with the St. Xavier-Canton McKinley state final.
“The OHSAA requires that we offer it,” Geller said.
Time Warner isn't ready to commit yet.
“We'll look it it,” Reed said. “I don't think there's great interest for our 330,000 subscribers. There might be interest, depending on the teams.”
If it's any local team, the interest will be great. Cincinnati is almost guaranteed to have a team in the semifinals. To get an idea of the interest in high school football in town, just look at the crowds of 10,000-plus that showed up for Elder-St. X and Elder-Moeller.
The OHSAA charges $1,500 to cable providers that pick up the games. The money would be well spent for the goodwill Time Warner would create by putting the games on.
ONN also has
the rights to the OHSAA basketball championships in all four divisions for both boys and girls, So this is likely to come up in March as well.
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