The "era of sports news saturation," arrives November 1 with
the debut of ESPNEWS and the Fox Sports Net, according to Ray
Richmond of VARIETY. CNN/SI, "a second all-sports news
alternative," debuts December 12. ESPNEWS and CNN/SI execs
"won't even hazard a guess" as to how many subscribers they will
have at launch time. But the "current figuring" is that ESPNEWS
will launch with fewer than the 10 million ESPN2 launched with
three years ago. Richmond adds a couple of cable operators, who
requested anonymity, "are skeptical of even one 24-hour sports
news channel surviving." ESPNEWS will "more or less play like a
24-hour rotating wheel of 'SportsCenter' half hours."
Programming will be live from 1:00pm ET through the "wee hours."
Richmond notes CNN/SI will differ from ESPNEWS in that it will
"likely take a more worldly view" with CNN's resources while Fox
Net will compete with ESPN and ESPN2 (VARIETY, 10/14 issue).
FOX NEWS: Fox Sports News announced its anchor team: Dwayne
Ballen, Kevin Frazier, Tom Kirkland, Suzy Kolber, Alan
Massengale, Paul Rudy, Craig Simpson, Randy Sparage, John Walls,
James Worthy and Jeanne Zelasko (Fox). News Corp. is "on track"
to report an earnings rise of 20% in the current fiscal year
(WALL STREET JOURNAL, 10/16).
