Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 17, 1995 TAG: 9506200026
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The plus for viewers is that instead of listening to Peter Alliss, they get Johnny Miller. The last time NBC televised the Open, in 1965, the man who would become the network's pithy golf analyst was preparing for his freshman year at Brigham Young University.
Miller won the 1973 Open at Oakmont, one of the 22 in which he played, so he's certainly qualified - not to mention thrilled - about having the chance to sit in the 18th-hole tower at Shinnecock Hills with Dick Enberg and discuss and dissect for six live hours both today (12:30 p.m.) and Sunday.
Miller is the man who a few years ago, early in his analytical gig, used the word ``choke'' to describe what some of his once-fellow pros were doing. He probably won't use that particular piece of vocabulary again, nor will he try pulling something from his bag akin to the ``bikini-wax'' greens that got Gary McCord a weekend off from CBS during Masters coverage in April.
``I've always thought honesty was the policy,'' said Miller, 48, during a midweek conference call. ``If a player says, `Hey, I didn't like that he said that,' then maybe the next time he won't do that. What I'm doing is giving them a free lesson.''
What Miller is doing is making the telecasts more enjoyable, as has McCord on CBS. Describing his at times tough analysis of pro golfers, Miller said, ``I feel like sometimes I'll pull their pants down. I won't pull their underwear off, but I do leave them in their boxers at times.''
Miller's telecast presence can only help Open viewers, if perhaps tee off the players. He'll be describing play on a tough layout that Briton Peter Oosterhuis once said ``is more England than England,'' a Long Island location Miller calls ``sensational.''
Don't tell Miller he's the NBC tough guy, however. That adjective goes this weekend to transplanted ABC golf voice Dave Marr. Three weeks ago, Marr, 61, was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in his stomach. He received doctors' permission to work the Open for his new network before undergoing surgery next week.
ICY NIGHTS: There is a first for the Stanley Cup Finals this year, and not just the appearance by the New Jersey Devils. For the first time, every game in the best-of-seven series will be televised in prime time in the United States.
Three of those games will be aired by Fox Sports, beginning with tonight's New Jersey-Detroit opener (8 p.m., WFXR Channels 21/27). ESPN has four cable games. The Fox telecasts of Games 1, 4 and 7, if necessary, are the first Stanley Cup Finals telecasts on an over-the-air U.S. network since CBS aired Game 6 of the 1980 Islanders-Flyers series.
However, that was an afternoon game. There hasn't been an over-the-air, prime-time national telecast of the finals in this country since May 11, 1972, when Boston clinched the Cup over the New York Rangers in Game 6. It has been 40 years since the Red Wings last won the Cup, back when the NHL's playoff season ended in mid-April.
The added intrigue in this year's finals is produced by the NHL labor problems that trimmed the regular-season to 48 games. No interconference games were played, so the Devils and Wings haven't met since February 1994. Fox and ESPN will dwell on that, plus the tradition in Detroit of throwing octopi on the ice - a tradition dating to the days when it took eight games (as in the number of legs the mollusk has) to win the Cup.
Fox's first season of a five-year NHL contract, at $31 million annually, has been a success. The network's studio show has tried to educate viewers without seeming condescending to hockey purists, which hasn't been easy. Mostly, it's worked, and the game-calling and camera work has been solid.
The network's regular-season ratings were up 18 percent over those on ABC last year, with the playoffs up 19 percent. Fox also is reaching the demographic audience it wants, with male viewers age 18-34, the Nielsen rating for the playoffs is up 58 percent over the ABC numbers in 1994.
Mike Emrick and John Davidson will call the Fox telecasts, with Joe Micheletti handling rinkside reports. On ESPN, analyst Bill Clement will be working his ninth consecutive Stanley Cup Finals, with Gary Thorne on play-by-play. ESPN's coverage begins with Game 2 Tuesday night.
LIKE ROCKETS: NBC's coverage of the Houston Rockets' four-game sweep of the NBA Finals ranked eighth in league Finals history, and a 13.9 Nielsen rating brought the network a 12 percent increase over the 1994 Houston-New York series. That's a significant climb considering last year's Finals had the No.1 TV market's team.
For the 1995 playoffs, NBC's Nielsen was 13 percent up from last season after the same increase in the regular season. Houston's Game 4 clincher Wednesday night brought a 16-percent rise over last year's Finals fourth game.
AROUND THE DIAL: CBS has added the Watkins Glen International, a 200-mile NASCAR Busch Grand National race at the New York track, to its schedule June 25 (1:30 p.m., WDBJ). ... The first NASCAR Supertruck stop in this region, the Pizza Plus 100 next Saturday night at Bristol International Raceway, will be aired live by ESPN. ... Radford University's basketball flagship stations will be WBNK (100.7 FM) in Christiansburg and WNRV (990 AM) in Narrows next season, ending a three-year stint on Pulaski's WPSK.
by CNB