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Viewers of "NESN Sports Today" starting Tuesday night will begin to see "significant changes to its 'side panel,' that familiar rail of information down the left side of the screen," according to Chad Finn of the BOSTON GLOBE. Rather than "using the space only to emphasize the topic being discussed at the time by the anchors or tease what is coming up -- a format NESN uses now, as does ESPN’s SportsCenter -- it instead will aspire to give a New England-based sports fan everything he or she needs to know in an 11- or 12-minute window." NESN has been "working on this project since last summer." Finn: "It is a true enhancement to watching Sports Today, the rare kind of innovative development that might just keep viewers focused on the television screen in an age in which there is so much content competing for attention." Rather than "providing a single story on the screen, the side panel will refresh every 25-30 seconds or so with different information while the anchors continue to deliver the news and highlights in a conventional way on the main screen." The layout is "similar to a website homepage that has been set to the specifications and preferences of the person viewing it." Finn: "In an 11-minute span, the test run I saw emphasized eight main stories that the anchors talked about. ... But on the left side of the screen, in the same span, 27 different topics were addressed in a brief but informative way" (
BOSTON GLOBE, 5/5).
