YES averaged a 6.6 local rating and nearly 635,000 viewers in the N.Y. market for Saturday's Rays-Yankees game, in which Yankees SS Derek Jeter reached and surpassed the 3,000 hit mark. The numbers marked "season highs." The net earned a peak rating of 8.3 and audience of 827,200 viewers from 2:00-2:15pm ET, the "quarter-hour after Jeter homered for his milestone hit" (NEWSDAY, 7/11).
LEAVE ROOM FOR BIKERS: The GUARDIAN's William Fotheringham reports a car "driving personnel from the French channels that cover" the Tour de France yesterday "collided with the cyclists in the winning escape," knocking one cyclist to the ground and another into a barbed wire fence." The car and its driver "were thrown off the race, which was the minimum possible sanction." Stage winner Luis-Leon Sanchez said that "in his view there were too many cars getting too close to the riders." Sanchez: "It's terrible. There were guest cars following us all day and they were often overtaking us to try and follow the race more closely" (GUARDIAN, 7/11).
SOLID CREDENTIALS: In K.C., Mike DeArmond wrote the "ascension of Gerry Ahern of Yahoo! Sports and Rivals.com to the position of first vice-president of the Associated Press Sports Editors association looks to be a game-changer for the way universities and the NCAA look at supposed dot.com journalists." Memberships in organizations like the APSE "have long been recognized as benchmark qualifiers for handing out credentials to cover the two major sports of the college scene." Reporters "applying for those credentials as representatives of Rivals.com sites ... often were denied credentials to cover games." But Ahern's "status with APSE -- the first vice president becomes the president of APSE the following year -- provides a distinction that could go a long way toward changing the media playing field" (KANSASCITY.com, 7/10).
ROAD SHOW: In N.Y., Kathryn Shattuck noted the logistics of televising NASCAR races in yesterday's Arts & Leisure section and noted it "takes a lot of work and coordination effectively to bring a NASCAR race into a living room." A "caravan of 37 tractor-trailers and some 500 employees crisscross the nation from track to track to erect the compound known in NASCAR circles as TV City," which "provides the technical wherewithal for Cup Series coverage by TNT, Fox, ESPN and ABC." The compound is "made up of 22 mobile production units and 15 support trailers valued at nearly" $50M, and it "will travel more than 35,000 miles this season." Shattuck noted a "typical Cup Series broadcast can pull from as many as 80 cameras on the track and in the pits" (N.Y. TIMES, 7/10).
