ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 18, 1997 TAG: 9701200115
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: ON THE AIR
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
It won't be figure skating on the Fox Network tonight. It will just look like it.
The NHL All-Star Game perennially has less hitting than a Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan duel, and scoring that approaches those high marks for those triple axel performers.
The 47th annual gathering of NHL stars (8 p.m., WJPR/WFXR) begins the third season of hockey on Fox. It also means the return of ``FoxTrax,'' the telecast puck enhancement system that the network says has been improved.
Let's hope so. Perhaps the artificial glow from the disc helped lure some casual viewers, but for those who know and like hockey, it has been a distraction. Fox Sports executive producer Ed Goren said FoxTrax is still ``a work in progress,'' and this season the trademarked system has been modified to create a more stable glow and a dot that's reduced in circumference.
The system also will be available on more cameras than the single center-ice shooter of a year ago. Another plus for Fox is the return of the solid game-calling team of Mike ``Doc'' Emrick and John Davidson.
Perhaps more viewers will see Fox's regular-season regional schedule, which begins next Saturday (Rangers-Penguins, 3 p.m. locally). The network's ratings were up 5 percent last season from 1995, and the six-game schedule has been moved to consecutive Saturday afternoons. That eliminates competition with the NBA on NBC, and puts hockey against college basketball, where the audience is so fractured by the glut of games that the 2.1 Nielsen Fox reached last year will fit the neighborhood.
GROWING PACK: A projected Nielsen rating as high as a 44 is expected for Super Bowl XXXI on Jan. 26, the first NFL title game on the Fox Network (6 p.m.). The historical factor is at work here, with viewers intrigued by Green Bay's first trip to the game since Vince Lombardi's coaching days. Green Bay-New England is an attractive Super Bowl, because the Patriots bring the populous East to the tube.
The ratings for Sunday's two conference championships were solid also after all five NFL telecasting networks showed Nielsen drops this season. The playoffs, overall, have been down 5 percent, too.
The NFC championship did a 30.1 national Nielsen for Fox on Sunday, down 11 percent from the Dallas-San Francisco rating a year earlier. NBC got a 28.5 rating for the Jacksonville-New England game for the AFC title, up 5 percent from last year's Pittsburgh-Indianapolis game. However, those numbers also were driven by flip-flopped timer periods for the two conferences.
The Green Bay-Carolina game rating was the highest for an early afternoon NFL conference final since the Chicago-Los Angeles Rams game in 1986. It also was the first time the early game outperformed the late title game in the ratings since 1987.
For the regular season, NFL ratings were down 10 percent on Fox, 5 percent on ABC's Monday night package and 2 percent on NBC. ESPN and TNT also had cable ratings fall on the NFL. However, the league will get an increase in TV dollars through negotiations that will get serious later this year, because CBS wants the sport back, and it will drive up the price as Fox did when it took the NFC Sunday schedule from CBS for the 1994-97 seasons.
TRUCKIN' ON: The third season for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series opens Sunday with the 200-mile Chevy Trucks Challenge at Walt Disney World Speedway in Florida (12:15 p.m., ESPN). Yes, it's early. It's still three weeks until the Winston Cup drivers open with the Busch Clash and the next truck race isn't scheduled until March 1.
The truck series continues to prosper, however. Not only were a record 64 trucks trying for 36 spots in Sunday's race, but the series prize money has been bumped from $1.6 million in 1995, to $4.8 million last year to $7.2 million this season. The circuit also is up to 26 races from 20 in the first year and 24 in 1996.
There also are two changes involving area drivers. Jimmy Hensley of Horsepasture, who finished eighth in truck points last year, stays in a Dodge but moves to the Richard Petty-owned Cummins Engine team. Longtime late-model driver Stacy Compton of Hurt joins the series as a regular in the Impact Motorsports Ford. Compton was seventh-fastest in recent testing at the Orlando mile oval.
MADDENING: This is the 14th year network analyst John Madden will pick an All-Madden team, but for the first time there are two squads - which means the Fox Network will have two shows.
The annual All-Madden team will be revealed at 5 p.m. Sunday in a one-hour show. Much of the show was taped at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, and there also is a segment on RFK Stadium, which the Washington Redskins are leaving after 35 seasons.
The ``All-Madden Haul of Fame,'' always on the road, this year moves to Avery Island, La., home of Tobasco sauce. Among the Madden all-time hall honorees this time is Pulaski County native Gary Clark, one of the NFL's top 10 career receivers, primarily with Redskins numbers.
On Super Bowl Sunday (next weekend), there will be a 90-minute All-Madden special, in which Madden selects his all-time All-Madden Super Bowl team at 1 p.m. Madden said that 39-player team would also have included Matt Millen, Howie Long, Terry Bradshaw and Ronnie Lott, but they were deemed ineligible because they work for Fox Sports.
MORE STARS: The East Coast Hockey League all-star game is scheduled at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Charlotte's Independence Arena, and the league has landed a potential 25 million TV homes via 15 regional cable networks. In this area, Home Team Sports has the game and will air it six times, the first showing in an 11 p.m. tape-delay on game night.
TUBE TALK: WDBJ (Channel 7) sandwiches its college basketball production between ACC and CBS games today, when the Roanoke station televises UNC-Greensboro's visit to Radford in a 2 p.m. tip-off. WDBJ sports director Mike Stevens and former Highlanders star Ron Shelburne will handle the call. Bowl roster Thursday, makes his broadcasting debut today on the Senior Bowl telecast (TBS, 2 p.m.). Green will be a reporter on the sideline of the North squad, which is coached by Redskins boss Norv Turner.
LENGTH: Long : 106 linesby CNB