Media Notes
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| Bilas Feels Packer Had HOF Broadcasting Career |
ESPN.com's Jay Bilas wrote college basketball announcer Billy Packer, who recently split with CBS, "should be in the Naismith Memorial [HOF]." After 34 years and "more than 100 Final Four games, representing just a small part of his contribution to this game, Packer spent his career as a name and voice synonymous with college basketball." Bilas wrote it is "beyond reasonable argument that Packer has been one of the most important and influential voices in the game's history" (ESPN.com, 7/15). But in Denver, Bernie Lincicome writes Packer "probably lasted longer doing a poor job than anyone in television." Packer was "such an overbearing crank," and there was a "reverse phoniness to Packer's sermonizing" (ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS, 7/16). In Lexington, John Clay: "As he grew older, he grew more the grouch. In the last few years, he was often too quick to judge and too focused on one or two points. ... He became too set in his ways. Little wonder CBS is going a different way" (LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, 7/16).
TALKIN' BASEBALL: With MLB set to launch the Baseball Network in January, CNBC’s Darren Rovell noted it will “be the largest launch in cable history.” MLB Exec VP/Business Tim Brosnan said, “We made a decision ... that we wanted the broadest distribution possible, that we wanted to be on a basic service and lucky for us, Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, the In-Demand partnership came along and proposed a deal that struck as fair” ("Closing Bell," CNBC, 7/15).
TV DEALS: DAILY VARIETY's Steve Clarke reports British Telecom (BT) and Setanta are offering free coverage of the English Premier League and the England men's national team on Setanta Sports 1. The channel is free to BT Vision customers who subscribe to packages costing about US$28 a month "in an attempt to add some much-needed new customers" (DAILY VARIETY, 7/16)....CBS College Sports Network is partnering with 23 cable providers, including Time Warner Cable, Cox and Charter, to "deliver free on demand content dedicated to the Collegiate Nationals," an event featuring collegiate championships in sports like beach volleyball and ultimate frisbee (CABLEFAX DAILY, 7/16).
LOCAL COVERAGE: ABC/ESPN has made available short-form videos from ESPN -- including game highlights, sports news and clips from ESPN programming -- to all 10 Web sites operated by ABC-owned local TV stations. The content, made available through a multi-sport embedded ESPN syndicated video player, also includes clips of "SportsCenter Right Now," "PTI," "Around The Horn" and ESPN Radio's "Mike & Mike in the Morning" (ABC).
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