Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 17, 1994 TAG: 9410240010
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This newspaper received numerous calls from misunderstanding viewers, too. The final word on the Joe Montana-Steve Young game is that it was never scheduled to be televised in the Roanoke-Lynchburg market - and couldn't have been scheduled even if the stations wanted it.
As an interconference game, the 49ers-Chiefs matchup was aired by the Fox Network, because the game was in KC. For interconference games, the network tied to the visiting team gets the game, and Fox has the NFC package.
However, last Sunday was an NBC doubleheader week in the AFC package, but San Francisco-Kansas City was in the NFC package.
Fox could only carry one game under to the NFL's alternating regional game delivery. WJPR/WFXR had no choice but to air the 4 p.m. New Orleans-Washington game, because Roanoke-Lynchburg is within the Redskins' TV region.
The 49ers-Chiefs game went to more than 40 percent of the nation. However, if area viewers want to be steamed at anyone, try the NFL. The league scheduled a very attractive matchup in an early time period on a weekend when the designated network had only one game.
A STRIKEOUT: The long-awaited and critically heralded PBS special series, ``Baseball'' begins Sunday night on WBRA (Channel 15) at 8. The 181/2-hour epic from Ken Burns (``Civil War'') runs over nine nights.
Well, that's on most PBS stations. The Roanoke station will air the first five ``innings'' - as Burns has labeled them - Sunday through Thursday nights. The series is scheduled to resume the following week.
However, because WBRA had previously scheduled its fund-raising ``Great TV Auction,'' the sixth through ninth innings won't air as scheduled by PBS.
The local public TV station is taking the final four shows and putting them in a 10-hour block, airing Sunday, Oct. 2 from 12:30-10:30 p.m.
That will make those last hours more difficult to tape, unless you have more than one VCR. And much of the ``sports'' audience will be watching live NFL games in that 10-hour block.
Yes, the auction is more crucial to that station, but couldn't WBRA have found a way to air this series. Who's going to sit riveted for 10 straight hours?
ON ICE: The Fox Network paid $155 million last week for five years of rights to the National Hockey League, a boon for a league which is trying to negotiate a contract with its players' union. You think the skaters may want some of those bucks.
Fox is counting on the hockey boom continuing, although, as with its new NFL contract, the network will lose money on another deal that legitimizes Fox as the fourth network.
The best-of-seven Stanley Cup Finals will include three prime-time games on Fox with four dates remaining on ESPN, which had what is now a $64 million NHL cable deal extended two years, through 1998-99. ESPN also retains most of the two conference finals series and has had its blackout restrictions into club markets somewhat softened.
ON FOOT: The CBS Sports coverage of the inaugural Presidents Cup international golf match from Northern Virginia will be different.
On today's three-hour show (3 p.m., WDBJ, Channel 7) the commentators won't be towers, but will walk the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club layout with the dueling teams, as they did Friday on ESPN's coverage.
Not surprising, Gary McCord and fellow announcer Ben Wright are jabbing each other about the assignment, although all of the CBS talking heads will return to towers for Sunday's individual match play.
``When Ben tries to talk and walk, the broadcast will sound like a 1-900 phone number with heavy breathing,'' McCord said. ``When is the last time you saw a deer with fat legs.''
Answers Wright: ``It's so silly and infantile of McCord. His legs look like they've been afflicted with rickets. On the other hand, I am stout of heart and stout of leg. I will walk those holes with legs by Steinway.''
HOKIES WAIT: The Big East Football Conference won't make a decision until Monday, but it's likely Virginia Tech's Oct. 1 visit to Syracuse will be aired at noon (WSLS, Channel 10) on the Big East TV package.
Big East associate commissioner Tom McElroy said Friday that if ABC or ESPN doesn't pick either Tech-Syracuse or Miami-Rutgers for the two CFA packages, the league is likely to air both games by splitting the syndicated network.
TWO NETWORKS: Those viewers with ESPN2 - that's 15 million subscribers nationally and few, if any, in this region - will be able to watch Sunday's Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix in two ways.
ESPN will air the 1 p.m. Indy-car race from Nazareth, Pa., with its regular commentators in the booth and the pits. On ESPN2, the entire race telecast will be from six in-car cameras, with an occasional cut-in by an announcer updating standings and laps.
It's an intriguing concept, one that fits those picture-in-a-picture TVs well. ``This may be a sign of things to come,'' said ESPN communications director Mike Soltys.
by CNB