THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 28, 1995 TAG: 9507280464
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WELDON LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Earlier this summer, Ray E. Hollowell Jr., an Outer Banks developer and member of the Northeast Economic Development Commission, made an impassioned pitch to the commission for $200,000 to put next summer's teenage Babe Ruth World Series in Manteo on national television.
``We couldn't get better publicity for the Outer Banks and northeastern North Carolina,'' Hollowell told the area pump-primers at a recent meeting in Washington, N.C.
His commission colleagues were impressed and voted to earmark the $200,000 for Hollowell's Babe Ruth promotion.
But this week, at the July meeting of the commission in Weldon, a soft-spoken television producer from Sunbury named Erna Bright Jr. appeared before the commissioners and told them he thought Hollowell's TV ideas were badly out of focus.
``We believe that Commissioner Hollowell's plan, while ambitious in scope and desirable as a promotion of the event, has some real money problems and question whether the results would be a good investment,'' Bright said.
Bright told the panel Wednesday that he had ``contacted the proposed networks'' - ESPN, ESPN2 and the Home Town Sports - and had been informed that none of the big-time TV sports producers were interested in Manteo's Babe Ruth baseball spectacle.
``Dan Margulis, director of programming for ESPN, told me that due to the low viewership of this type of event they were not interested; AAA farm baseball has a much larger viewership.
``ESPN2 did not feel Babe Ruth Baseball is cost effective for them,'' Bright told the commission.
HTS officials told Bright they were not sure they could clear air time next summer for the Manteo baseball shows because of possible conflicts.
Bright added that he believed the ``odds were against'' any national television showing of the Babe Ruth games.
Bright, who has produced TV shows for several national networks, said that a realistic cost for presenting one Babe Ruth game on national TV would ``$50,000-plus per game.''
Bright said he took issue with Hollowell's ``approach of making available a defined amount of money for commercial production without a good idea of what it is going to buy.''
Bright made his own pitch in his statement, saying his company would be glad to help the commission sort out the Babe Ruth television plans.
``We know that money has to be handled carefully, and public money very, very carefully. . . . We simply don't know whether (Hollowell's TV plan) can be done within the budget.''
James Lancaster, executive director of the commission, said Thursday that before Hollowell could get the earmarked $200,000 he would have to submit proposals and guarantees to the commission for approval.
Before the commission could debate Bright's comments, Chairman Andrew Allen of Plymouth ruled that further discussion was out of order because Hollowell was not present. Allen said Bright's statement would be discussed when Hollowell attends a future session.
Hollowell could not be reached for comment at his Roanoke Island home or at his Shallowbag Bay Development Company office in Manteo. by CNB