CBS Sports Network Planning To Air More Live, Talk Show-Type Programming

CBS Sports Exec VP & Network President David Berson said that “replacing weekday reruns with talk shows ... is in the works” for the channel, according to Michael Hiestand of USA TODAY. Berson said that the first of those shows will be “The Tim Brando Show,” a “simulcast of the CBS announcer’s Sporting News Radio show that will now move to a TV studio.” Berson added that the show “will debut in August.” Berson also said that the net, which was recently renamed and previously called CBS College Sports Network, “will keep tying in with CBS’ announcers and events and look for more of its own events.” But he added, “The sports rights landscape is incredibly competitive now.” Berson noted that CBS Sports Network is “in about 43 million homes and available to an additional 52 million on pay tiers” (USA TODAY, 6/15).

NEW GIG FOR RICH ROD: CBS Sports Network yesterday announced that former Univ. of Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez will serve as a college football game and studio analyst. Rodriguez will call games with announcer Dave Ryan and will be part of CBS Sports Network’s studio programming from N.Y. (CBS). In Detroit, Mark Snyder noted Rodriguez was “part of the network’s Signing Day special, working with analyst Tom Lemming to [assess] various recruiting classes, including Michigan’s.” CBS “doesn’t do much Big Ten coverage,” so there is “little chance of Rodriguez calling games involving Michigan or his other former school, West Virginia” (FREEP.com, 6/14).

LOGGING ON: The CBSSports.com College Network has added Army, Minnesota, Missouri State, Nevada and Ohio State to its network of schools for which it produces official athletic department websites. With the quintet of new schools CBSSports.com now produces official sites for 75% of universities in the six major conferences. CBSSports.com has spent much of the past year implementing improvements to the multimedia player used by schools in the network, and this fall will be rolling out a series of new mobile applications for the iOS, Android and Blackberry platforms (Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal).