PERSONALITIES: Former Lightning GM Phil Esposito was
named hockey analyst for "Fox Sports News," and will begin
in the first week of December (FSN)....Steve Stone, a WGN
Cubs analyst for 16 seasons, was "unhappy that he didn't
receive a pay raise last season" and is "thinking about
accepting a TV broadcasting offer from an American League
team" (SUN-TIMES, 11/17)....HTS declined to pick up the
option of Orioles analyst Rick Cerone for the final two
years of his contract, and is "reportedly negotiating with
former Orioles pitching coach Mike Flanagan" (SUN, 11/17).
ONLINE: P.O.V. magazine's 3rd Annual "P.O.V. 100" best
Web sites list includes: Broadcast.com (No.3); ESPN.com
(8); CBS SportsLine (37); CNN/SI.com (40); GolfWeb (56);
The Mountain Zone (66); FANSonly (80); and Total Baseball
(93) (P.O.V., 11/98 issue)....U.K.-based planetfootball.com
ltd. has invested more than C$1M in developing Web sites
that offer live radio commentary and other sound clips, from
European soccer matches. Leeds United http://www.
planetfootball.com began charging just under US$10 to access
games and interviews (Toronto GLOBE & MAIL, 11/17).
NOTES: ABC and its union of 2,200 off-camera NABET
workers have agreed to resume contract negotiations, perhaps
as early as this week, "with the help of a Federal mediator"
(N.Y. TIMES, 11/17)....CBS COO Mel Karmazin told Variety
that relocating the company from Rockefeller Center to "its
more modest broadcast center near the Hudson River makes
economic sense to him" (N.Y. POST, 11/17)....In DC, WBDC-WB
Station Manager Mike Nurse said that the station, which was
to carry 27 Wizards games, "could lose about $300,000" by
January 1 due to lost games (WASHINGTON POST, 11/17).
