THE BIG LEAD's Jason McIntyre reported ESPN Radio's "The Scott Van Pelt Show" co-host Ryen Russillo was "suspended by ESPN for an undetermined period of time following his Super Bowl incident with a Boston radio host." A source said that Russillo was "suspended, but details are being kept private." Another source said that Russillo was "on scheduled vacation last week," which led McIntyre to believe he was suspended Monday and Tuesday. The night before the Super Bowl, Russillo "nearly got into a fight" with WEEI-AM's John Dennis (THEBIGLEAD.com, 2/21).
BLANK SCREEN: In K.C., Blair Kerkhoff notes for the "second straight week, Time Warner Cable of Kansas City subscribers missed part of ESPN’s 'Big Monday' game featuring Big 12 teams." Instead of seeing Baylor’s "come from behind victory over Texas on Monday, screens went mostly black in the first half, and the game never returned." A "similar problem happened a week earlier, when the first half of the Kansas-Kansas State game from Manhattan wasn’t available." After last week’s problem, TWC of K.C. "apologized and explained through a news release that a receiver failed to respond to a change in satellite frequencies initiated by ESPN." A TWC spokesperson yesterday could not be reached for comment (K.C. STAR, 2/22).
SUIT UP! SI has generated 4.9 million unique visitors to its Swimsuit channel on SI.com, 44% higher than last year, and second largest audience to the channel in the last five years. SI.com also generated a company-record 34.5 million video views of its '12 Swimsuit content since its release a week ago. And SI's free Swimsuit iPhone application has generated more than 482,000 downloads, ranking as high as No. 1 on iTunes rankings among free sports applications, and No. 8 among free applications overall (Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal).
NETTING A WIN: DAILY VARIETY's Nick Vivarelli reported Sky Italia has "won a key ruling over World Cup soccer rights against rival Mediaset Premium." A Paris arbitration court has "rejected Mediaset's legal suit claiming that Sky broke EU competition rules by snapping up all rights to the FIFA 2010 South Africa World Cup tournament, and refusing to resell the DTT rights, which it did not use." The ruling "ups the ante for future soccer bidding wars between Sky and Mediaset Premium" (VARIETY.com, 2/21).
FIELD REPORTING: Comcast SportsNet yesterday announced the net's Gregg Murphy has been added to the Phillies broadcast team as a field reporter for the '12 season. Murphy will occasionally provide analysis on Comcast SportsNet's news and Phillies programs including "SportsNite," "Daily News Live," "Phillies Pregame Live" and "Phillies Postgame Live" (Comcast SportsNet).
