Sunday, August 12, 2001
Sports on TV-radio
TV stations focus on prep football
By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Put any of the four local television stations in virtually any other market in the country and that station's high school coverage would be No. 1 in the market.
Every sports director in town recognizes, correctly, that preps are huge here.
Friday is the big high school football night. Each station dedicates between eight and 15 minutes to high school football. Now, stations are trying to go beyond Friday night with their coverage.
Channel 5 added a half-hour show called Blitz 5 Extra on Saturdays at 1 p.m. The show will return this year.
“High schools are our focus right now,” said 5 sports director Ken Broo.
Channel 9, which ran a high school recap show Saturday morning last year, will move it to 11:30 p.m. Saturday this year. The big difference this year is it will be all local.
Last year's show was produced out of Philadelphia and was less than half local.
“The biggest complaint we got was: If you're going to do a high school show, why not do all local? There's plenty to report here,” Channel 9 sports director John Popovich said.
Thus Sports Rush was born.
“Because it's 24 hours after the fact, it won't be dominated by high school football highlights,” Popovich said. “We'll do more stories and features.”
This biggest test of a station's high school coverage will remain Friday night. Channel 5 and 19 give 15 minutes to high schools on their Friday 11 p.m. broadcast. Channel 12 and 9 give about eight minutes.
It's great fun to watch a couple stations and compare. It's probably the hottest competition this side of the GCL South.
DOUBLE WRAP: Channel 19 will launch a Saturday version of Sports Wrap beginning Sept. 1. The station had been airing the half-hour Wrap on Sundays.
No word whether there will be a so-bad-it's-good lead-in skit.
INTERACTIVE TV: If you caught any of ESPN's coverage of the Tennis Masters Series Cincinnati Wednesday, you saw what may become a staple of sports TV.
ESPN went interactive, allowing fans to e-mail questions to Cliff Drysdale and Patrick McEnroe.
It worked well because the replies of Drysdale and McEnroe were so thoughtful. Tennis, with all its down time, is a perfect vehicle for that kind of thing.
The best part was McEnroe and Drysdale rarely agreed.
The night session Wednesday, featuring Pete Sampras' loss, aired on ESPN2. It drew a 0.5 rating, the second highest for tennis on ESPN2.
MORE TENNIS: CBS (Channel 12) will carry the Tennis Masters live today at 1 p.m. Bill Macatee and Mary Carillo will call the action. It would have been nice to have McEnroe and Drysdale do it.
BIG DOG UPDATE: Heard from former WBOB sports talker Tim Lewis, via e-mail. He's back in Salt Lake City to help build a 50,000-watt all-sports station there.
THANKS, BRO: Adam Bartel, who lives in Blue Ash, was all set to go on ESPN's 2-Minute Drill. But just as this was happening, his brother, Sean Bartel, was going through a major career shake-up.
Sean had been working as a sports anchor for WEVV in Evansville, Ind. The station dismantled its news department, but Sean was able to get a job with WEHT, another Evansville station. The station happens to be an ABC affiliate. ABC and ESPN are owned by Disney. That created a conflict.
Long story short: Adam was off the 2-minute Drill.
E-mail: jfay@enquirer.com.
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