The Rockets reached agreement on a three-year deal with
KPRC-AM to become the team's flagship radio station starting
with the '98-99 season. The deal ends a ten-year
relationship with KTRH. KPRC will pay an "undisclosed
rights fee" to the Rockets. The team will "keep all rights
to commercial sales" during its games; and the parties will
"share" commercial revenues from WNBA Comets and other
Rockets-related coaches and players shows (HOUSTON
CHRONICLE, 4/30).....NY-based The Marquee Group has been
retained by Americast, to serve as consultants in developing
and producing local and regional sports programming (The
Marquee Group)....LPGA Commissioner Jim Ritts "chose not to
comment directly" on Titleist pulling advertising from SI's
Golf Plus, but did say that "women's golf at times suffers
from media coverage that focuses more on off-course stories
than competition." Ritts: "But it has gotten better in the
past year and a half" (BOSTON GLOBE, 4/29). The topic of
advertisers influencing magazine editorial content is
featured in the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Today there are "major
advertisers that are wielding their economic clout to change
the rules of magazine publishing." While it isn't "unusual"
for companies not to advertise in publications they deem
"offensive," some are going "much further: demanding advance
warnings about stories" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 4/30)....ESPN
was found to have the least "clutter" (advertising and
promotion) per hour, only 10:30 per hour, according to the
annual Television Commercial Monitoring Report (MEDIAWEEK,
4/28 issue)....Netscape Guide by Yahoo!, which officially
launched on Tuesday, has tapped InterZine Productions' iGolf
to be a featured content provider. The site offers, among
other things, a database of 17,000 golf courses around the
world (AD AGE, 4/30). InterZine Productions publishes The
Sports Business Daily.
