TV MONITOR: Last night's 11:00pm ET edition of CNN/SI's
"Sports Tonight" led with a U.S. women's soccer team update
and followed with the U.S. men's national soccer team-Derby
County highlights. The 11:00pm ET edition of FSN's
"Primetime" (Fox Sports Net South) led with an update on
Sparky Anderson's illness, followed by an update on 49ers RB
Garrison Hearst's status. ESPN's 11:30pm ET "SportsCenter"
also led with an update on Hearst, and followed with the
Saints signing DB Ashley Ambrose (THE DAILY).
WWC: ABC's broadcast of the Women's World Cup (WWC)
final pulled an 11.4/31 national Nielsen rating (ABC). USA
TODAY's Rudy Martzke notes that the rating "dipped" from its
13.3 overnight, "but still was a record for a soccer game in
this country with 40 million viewers." The rating was 20%
better than the previous high for the '94 World Cup men's
Final featuring Brazil-Italy (USA TODAY, 7/14). In Toronto,
William Houston writes that CTV drew 341,000 viewers for a
simulcast with ABC. Total Canadian audience was estimated
at "about" 680,000, "which is comparable with a very good"
Blue Jays rating on the CBC or the second game of a "Hockey
Night In Canada" doubleheader (GLOBE & MAIL, 7/14). The
official WWC site, powered by HP 9000 Enterprise Servers,
had more than 66 million hits during the event, peaking at
more than 3.8 million hits on the day of the Final (WWC).
NEW LOOK FOR SPORTSLINE: SportsLine USA has relaunched
CBS SportsLine today in an effort to reduce download time
and offer an enhanced design (SportsLine USA). SportsLine
USA Chair & CEO Michael Levy was asked by CNBC's Bill
Griffeth whether it was "a good or a bad thing to be tied so
closely" to CBS when "there are a lot other distribution
outlets" for sports. Levy: "You can't have really more than
one television partner because of the competition level
between the TV networks, but we're sure happy to have CBS.
It's better to have one than zero" ("Power Lunch," 7/13).
MORE MEDIA NOTES: TNN had the "fourth-most-watched"
program on basic cable last week with NASCAR's Jiffy Lube
300 drawing 3.1 million HHs (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 7/14).
....In Detroit, Terry Foster reports on Fox Sports Net's
(FSN) decision to create local sports shows in 22
metropolitan areas and writes that the move will "make a
huge impact on local sports programming" (DET. NEWS, 7/14).
