News Corp., which "vowed to go after" ESPN's national
audience and ad revenues when it launched Fox Sports Net in
'97, "has failed to dent ESPN's stronghold," according to
Sallie Hofmeister of the L.A. TIMES, who writes that "in the
process of trying to knock ESPN off its pedestal," News
Corp. "may have sacrificed profits from its one real
strength: amassing local audiences through the airing of
hometown games." The Myers Group Chief Economist Jack
Myers: "Fox's strategy of trying to compete with ESPN was
ill-advised from the beginning. They were never truly a
national network because local sports inherently draw upon
the loyalties advertisers have locally." Hofmeister writes
that News Corp. is now "trying to harvest those missed
opportunities" by combining "The National Sports Report"
with a separate half-hour segment called "The Regional
Sports Report," which will debut this summer. Also, News
Corp. will announce today a reorganization of its ad sales
force, as the ad sales managers at its RSNs will report to
the Fox TV Group. On July 1, the local ad efforts of Fox's
11 sports channels and its 14 TV stations will be
consolidated under station sales chief Jim Burke.
Hofmeister writes that analysts say that these efforts
"could drive up advertising rates, helping to narrow Fox's
gigantic earnings gap with ESPN." ESPN earned about $830M
last year compared to $60M for News Corp.'s U.S. networks,
according to estimates. Fox Stations Division President
Mitchell Stern: "The hope is that we will get a bigger share
of the local market by bringing advertisers more stuff --
stations, Web sites, sports networks" (L.A. TIMES, 4/27).
