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End of Star-Anchor Era Presents
Options, Challenges for Networks
THE SMALL SCREEN: By JOE FLINT
The Wall Street Journal
August 17, 2005

The death of Peter Jennings last week has left many wondering if we have seen the last of the star anchors. If that is the case, what will it mean for the television news business?

With the departures in the last year of both NBC's Tom Brokaw and CBS's Dan Rather, Mr. Jennings was the last of the larger-than-life evening news personalities. Although the audience for the evening news on all three networks has eroded sharply over the last 20 years, the veteran trio still held tremendous sway at their respective networks.

That was often a good thing, especially in the case of Mr. Jennings, who was a strong advocate for more coverage from overseas and frowned upon having to devote time to celebrity trials and tawdry murder cases. Once loss leaders that added prestige and clout to the networks, news divisions have endured massive cuts and are now expected to be profit centers. Anchors became strong advocates for serious news, although they often lost more battles than they won.

But there was a downside to the power and influence that the anchors wielded. Mr. Rather had become such a force inside CBS News that his strong defense of the ill-fated report on President Bush's military service likely hindered internal investigations about the story, which ultimately embarrassed the network.

And for all the attention the long-serving anchor triumvirate received, their absence hasn't as yet resulted in a further rating decline at the nightly newscasts. Some 37 million people tuned in on average to one of the three networks in the early 1990s; this year, the three shows have been drawing some 26 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

For network executives, the transition has both positive and negative repercussions. Fewer stars means smaller paychecks -- Messrs. Jennings, Brokaw and Rather all had contracts in the range of $10 million a year. The loss of these imposing presences who often resisted change also creates an opportunity for the networks to innovate the format for the first time in decades.

"I think the networks are happy to get out of the Jurassic age and find cheaper mammals to replace the dinosaurs, says Dr. Robert Lichter, head of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

What's more, having lower-profile nightly news anchors could help the networks shift the emphasis to their morning shows, which are significantly more profitable than the high-budget evening telecasts. The morning shows also have better prospects for ratings and advertising growth, because they attract a younger audience demographic that marketers desire. In that arena, too, the networks are facing a generational shift in the next several years, and will need to fill seats as the Sawyers, Courics and Lauers exit.

One downside, however, is that without those veterans around, it will be tougher for the networks to stand out against their cable competition. "Maybe $10 million was a small price to pay to have something to distinguish you from the universe of cable channels," Mr. Lichter said.

With new faces occupying the key anchor slots, the networks also are going to have to find new ways of affirming the credibility and authority of their newscasts.

For many years, network news anchors established their reputations with viewers during marathon broadcasts of election-year political conventions. The party gatherings, which used to be televised gavel-to-gavel by the networks, played a big role in boosting the careers of legendary anchors like Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, notes former NBC News President Larry Grossman. Today, conventions exist largely as pep rallies, with little drama or news. Except for hardcore political junkies, most viewers have abandoned these scripted exercises.

Today, it is during a crisis where an anchor looks to bond with the audience. Mr. Jennings logged an incredible 60 hours on the air during the days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Dan Rather was famous for racing off to cover breaking stories, from wartime battles to tropical storms. Whether having him there really improved the coverage is debatable, his presence on the scene immediately suggested to viewers that the network believed the story was important.

While it could be difficult for less-established anchors to convey a similar sense of gravitas, the rising stature of the networks' other newscasts has made that mission easier. NBC "Today" show co-host Matt Lauer might not be viewed in media circles as the equal of "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams, but many viewers probably would be comfortable with either during a crisis.

But as the network news landscape changes, viewers are likely to lose out in the end. Messrs. Jennings, Rather and Brokaw all arrived at their anchor perch after rising up through the reporting ranks, a path that gave them perspective when covering major world events. Even if the audience didn't always agree with what came out of their mouths, viewers knew that those observations had been formed by years of experience. "All it means is that the role of news divisions and seriousness of news divisions have been undermined," says Mr. Grossman.

Grooming anchors by having them spend time anchoring other newscasts rather than in the field might make for a smoother delivery, but the meal will be less filling.

NIGHTLY NEWS RATINGS

Network Average Audience
(in millions) % Change
vs. 2004
ABC 9.0 million -3%
CBS 7.1 million -6.6%
NBC 9.4 million -6%
Source: Nielsen Media Research

Few Late-Summer Viewers, but Many Tune In to Peter Jennings Tribute

The TV Column: By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post

Only eight prime-time programs cracked 10 million viewers last week as the broadcast networks crawled to the end of the summer slump.

Here's a look at the week's winners and losers:

WINNERS

Peter Jennings. The night after Jennings died at age 67 of lung cancer, "World News Tonight," the show he anchored for more than two decades, clocked 10.5 million viewers -- its biggest audience since 1998. Had that Monday newscast aired in prime time, it would have ranked No. 6 in the Prime Time Top 10. As it was, the public's spontaneous viewing tribute to the longtime ABC anchor meant the show was of more interest to people than 110 other programs that the six broadcast networks aired in prime time last week. It was watched by more viewers than anything offered on any of the nearly 400 cable networks now available. Two nights later, ABC's two-hour prime-time salute to Jennings logged 9.4 million viewers, which also would have put it in the official top 10 list had not ABC decided to run the special "sustaining," which means without advertising. Nielsen Media Research doesn't rank such programming.

Pamela Anderson. An average of 4.3 million people caught Comedy Central's telecast of Courtney Love's Truly Spectacular Meltdown, which masqueraded as a roast of ABC sitcom star/ Playboy pinup/ animal rights activist Anderson. Though it was jammed with jokes about Anderson's store-bought breasts (uninspired, yes, but a sure-fire magnet for the network's core young male audience) and though Love's Lost Weekend interpretation was Oscar-worthy, this roast was no match for Jeff Foxworthy's back in March, which had bagged more than 6 million fans. Still, the Love/Anderson comedy team copped cable's largest haul of the week among 25-to-54-year-olds -- ironically, that's the news demographic. Grievously, only 77,000 children between the ages of 2 and 11 were on hand to see Love's this-is-your-brain-on-drugs performance.

LOSERS

Miss Teen USA. Up from last year's smallest audience on record -- not so hard a feat, given that the show moved from Friday to Monday night -- the young-chick pageant instead nabbed its second smallest audience ever: 5.7 million viewers.

"Hooking Up." ABC News's documentary series sounded great on paper, since online dating services are reportedly used by 40 million Americans. All but about 4 million of them, it turns out, really do not wish to watch a show about it in their spare time. That's the number of people who suffered through the final episode of this series following 12 women as they online-dated.

"I Want to Be a Hilton." "On second thought, no I don't," said almost all Americans, except the paltry 3.7 million who watched the final episode of Paris's mom's sad stab at celebrity.

"Weeds." It may be "the most talked-about comedy in ages," as Showtime keeps telling us, citing Newsweek.com as its source, but only 488,000 watched the Monday premiere of the new comedy about a pot-selling suburban mom. In its "sneak peek" the night before, it had done better than that, luring 540,000 viewers.

Dennis Farina plays a cop where he was once was one

By BY RICK KOGAN Chicago Tribune

Some people are impossible to imagine as a kid, and Dennis Farina is one of them, even as he sits across a table saying, "And the teacher, the nun, would say to us, 'OK, boys, now move these boxes' or 'Put these chairs over there,' and then she would say, 'Here's your reward' and give us some candy."

He is saying this remembering what it was like growing up and going to school in Chicago and learning lessons that he continues to carry through life while sitting in a restaurant named Phil Stefani's 437 but which was once called Riccardo's and was the setting for the opening scene of the 1986-88 NBC television series Crime Story.

This is important because with that opening scene, Farina's life was changed forever.

Before then he was an 18-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, a detective moonlighting on Chicago theater stages and in small movie roles. With the series, he became a full-time actor much in demand for feature films (Midnight Run, Saving Private Ryan, Get Shorty, Snatch), TV movies (The Case of the Hillside Strangler, Empire Falls) and TV series (The In-Laws, Buddy Faro).

He is currently one of the stars of Law & Order, playing tough, nattily dressed Detective Joe Fontana.

"I had met (Law & Order creator and executive producer) Dick Wolf a long time ago when I worked on some episodes of Miami Vice when he was a producer of that show," Farina says. "I wasn't so sure about signing up for Law & Order. I liked the show, but another TV series?

"I'll tell you, though, it's been great, and I had no idea how popular the show was."

Farina was born on Feb. 29, 1944, a leap-year baby and the fourth son and youngest of the seven children of Joseph and Yolanda Farina. The father was a doctor, the mother a homemaker, and they raised their kids in what was then a working-class neighborhood with a broad ethnic mix predominated by Italians and Germans.

He went to school right around the corner from his home, at St. Michael's Elementary and St. Michael's Central High School. They no longer exist.

"Change never bothers me, not really," Farina says. "I don't need to see the old school to remember it and the teachers there. They changed the way that I've always looked at life and learning."

After graduating from high school, Farina decided to "get the Army out of the way" and served three years before returning to Chicago. He worked for a while at the South Water produce market until, on the advice of his older brother, a lawyer, he joined the police force and studied criminal justice at Truman Junior College.

He does not like to talk about his years on the force, primarily because during his first interviews as an actor, writers continually asked him questions such as, "Did you ever kill anybody?" (He did not.)

"I left that life a long time ago," he says. "I was a good cop, a good detective, and I've still got some good friends on the force. No, I don't offer any inside information to the Law & Order writers. I'm an actor now."

He left Truman College a few hours short of his criminal justice degree. "I'm still thinking that I might go back and finish," he says. "I can only imagine how that would please my brother Joe. He was a lawyer. He's in Heaven now."

His brother was a big influence on him, he says, as were other members of his family and his teachers. "Not like today," he observes. "There weren't sports stars or singers or actors as role models. The models were at home and at school."

Farina is 61, and his former teachers are all "in Heaven now." But he saw some of his classmates at the recent wedding of one of his sons; he has three from a previous marriage, Michael, Joseph and Dennis Jr.

When not working, which has been most of this summer, Farina is here, splitting his time between a 25th-floor apartment on the North Side and a house in New Buffalo, Mich., in an area where he has dozens of relatives. He likes to play golf, to read and to see his family.

"Sometimes I think we're all stuck in about 1948," he says. "When I get together with my brothers and sisters, playing cards or whatever, it's always like: 'Do you remember this guy or that place?' 'Do you remember when we saw such and such a movie at the Plaza?' It's fun to come back home."

Tuesday's network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

After Lance, a far bolder race for OLN
As a challenger to ESPN's dominance in sports
By Dan Weil medialifemagazine.com

There's certainly some irony here. Weeks ago ESPN passed on renewing its hockey rights deal, having implied during the lockout that it didn't care if it ever got hockey back, so poor were its ratings.

But this week, possibly as soon as today, ESPN may extend its deal after all, and not entirely out of choice. The network might do it simply to keep the NHL out of the hands of OLN, which has suddenly become a big worry for ESPN.

How things have changed.

The question confronting OLN after its coverage of the Tour de France ended last month was what it would do after Lance Armstrong's retirement.

Now we have the answer. The network long known for hunting and fishing is fast emerging as a challenger to ESPN's preeminence in sports coverage.

And while the question of whither OLN was much-talked about during Armstrong's final tour, the ambition to challenge ESPN appears to have been in the works for some time, long before the race and probably since owner Comcast's failed Disney takeover bid last year. Comcast wanted ESPN.

OLN, formerly the Outdoor Life Network, changed its name to simply OLN in July to distance itself from the hunting and fishing crowd. Now OLN is going after major sports: the NHL, NFL and perhaps even NASCAR, and it has the considerable wealth of Comcast to either win these sports away from ESPN or at the least bid the price up to new levels.

The question for advertisers is when OLN will be competitive with ESPN. The answer may be sooner than you'd think.

I think it will be a viable competitor to ESPN2 and ESPN Classic in two to five years, and it could challenge ESPN's main network in 10 years, says Karen McCallum, who supervises ad buying for McKee Wallwork Henderson Advertising in Albuquerque.

Media buyers would welcome a competitor to ESPN to give them leverage, much as they value Telemundo as a point of leverage against the far larger Univision for reaching the Hispanic audience.

For certain, OLN still has a long way to go, with bull riding its most popular non-Tour programming. Its expansion has begun with reruns of Survivor and recently acquired rights to the Boston Marathon, America's Cup and the Iditarod.

Its bid for the National Hockey League would be an important step, in a deal that would pay the league $100 million over two years. OLN would take over from ESPN, which dropped the struggling sport after last season's lockout.

Though the NHL limped to a 0.2 rating in its last season on ESPN2, that's double OLN's primetime average during second quarter.

OLN also is reportedly negotiating with the NFL to broadcast late-season Thursday and Saturday games. There is even talk that OLN will go after NASCAR.

It's been clear that Comcast has been interested in a national sports network for years, says Marc Ganis, president of Sportscorp, a sports business consulting firm in Chicago. [Comcast CEO] Brian Roberts has made clear that sports is the company's centerpiece.

OLN, based in Stamford, Conn., debuted in 1995, and Comcast took full control in 2001. The network reaches some 60 million homes, compared with nearly 90 million for ESPN. In a recent conference call with analysts, Roberts and Comcast CFO Stephen Burke denied they are looking to take on ESPN.

But given that Comcast carries ESPN on its cable system, it makes sense that it would keep any intentions quiet. Comcast obviously has no incentive to tip its hand to the company that would be its major competitor. Comcast clearly has the financial wherewithal to compete with ESPN. It needs the content to do so.

Now they need compelling programming, Ganis says. It's no surprise they're talking to the NHL and NFL. The NHL fills time, and the NFL is compelling programming.

Hand Me a Camera
At Channel 2, reporters become photogs, photogs become reporters and a world is turned upside down

By Liz Garrigan NashvilleScene.com

NASHVILLE, TN---Michael Rosenblum, once described as the "guru of one-person television journalism," is the mastermind behind what's known as the video-journalist revolution, which has been employed widely for the last five to 10 years by the likes of cable television (Trauma: Life in the E.R., for example), the BBC and filmmakers. But aside from niche bloggers and industry folks who follow these sorts of things, few realize that Rosenblum's experiment is beginning to gain traction in television news too. And the ground floor of it all is happening right here in Nashville.

Nashville's third-rated local news station, WKRN-Channel 2, is the first newsroom in the country to move to a comprehensive "VJ" model, wherein the TV news staff is told, as Rosenblum puts it, "to forget everything you know or think you know about television because everything you know is wrong."

Videographers who were once responsible only for shooting film are now charged with reporting stories, often even nuanced public policy news that they've never before needed to understand in any sophisticated way. Conversely, reporters who have never shot film in their lives are given cameras and laptops and trained to shoot as well as report, edit their own packages, etc. It turns conventional TV newscasting on its head.

Rosenblum, in Nashville this week conducting ongoing training for WKRN staff, tells the Scene that there's been "enormous resistance on the news side for doing this." But, he says, at Channel 2, "I think they're delightedunless they're all lying to me."

Yeah, about that, Michael...they are.

"I feel like the station hasn't thought this all the way through," says one Channel 2 photographer. "I feel like my job is hard enough. Now, I'm missing things. My photography is suffering because I'm worried about trying to get the facts. And the reporters are so busy composing shots that their notepads are on the coffee table."

That's not to say that this kind of fear or grousing trumps the groundbreaking nature of the new format. Both Rosenblum and WKRN general manager Mike Sechrist make a compelling case that scrapping conventional newscasting has been due for a long time. ("Rosenblum has an answer for everything," one Channel 2 reporter says.)

Until just recently, WKRN had six camera crews to document the news every day. "That's kind of like the equivalent of a newspaper having only six pencils to make the paper with every day," says Rosenblum, who, at the tender age of 30, left a plum producer position at CBS Sunday Morning to stumble into founding this sort of democratization of television. "As a journalist, if you had to book the pencil crew every time you wanted to go do a story, it would drive you crazy. And that's exactly the way television has functioned." When WKRN's training and transformation is complete in a few months, 35 cameras, instead of six, will document the news of the day.

Some Channel 2 staffers aren't wholly resistant to the new format, but they do question why more fundamental issues haven't been addressed to improve the newscast and, thus, ratings. "We've never invested money in the bad signal, and we don't promote stories," one reporter says. It's been long known that there are places around Nashville where News 2 crews can't get a signal"blind spots all over Middle Tennessee."

Morale is in the gutter, newsroom staffers say, and three valued staffers have fled the station in the last few months, among them reporter Lilla Marigza and weekend anchor L.J. Moody. "If everything was going fine here, they would want to work here. It just gave them an excuse," one reporter there says.

What's more, they wonder whether the motive for a wholesale transformation of the newsroom has been driven by station owner Young Broadcasting's financial health. The owner of 10 stations nationwide, Young reported its worst quarterly loss in more than a decade earlier this month.

GM Sechrist says it's not about the money, that it would be folly "to do things the same old way and expect them to come out differently." Moreover, he says, the station has invested in 30 new cameras and nearly 20 Dell laptops and is considering buying a new fleet of cars for staffers. "This was not a money decision. It was a decision based on looking at the way news looks now."

For now, viewers can expect some jarring dispatches from newbie VJs, awkward voice-overs and ill-advised camera angles. Yet to completely shake out is whether, in spot news situations when timing and staffing are crucial, some semblance of the traditional model will survive. Sechrist says it will, but staffers are more skeptical.

In the meantime, Rosenblum sees better ratings on the horizon. "This thing is going to roll across the country in the next few years."

NHL TV Decision Could Come Today
NHL is in line to skate to Outdoor Life Network

By Michael Hiestand USA Today

The NHL leaves ESPN for an up-and-coming network willing to pay more for the league's national TV rights although the upstart reaches fewer homes.

That happened when Ronald Reagan was in the White House. And the NHL, probably today, might pull off a similar slap shot.

Sometimes, the NHL seems like one lucky league.

In 1988, now-defunct SportsChannel America hoped NHL games would help it cobble together a network of fewer than 10 million households. It paid $17 million annually over three years twice what ESPN had been paying to show NHL games in about one-quarter of the households ESPN then reached. That ended up being too much: SCA managed to get a fourth NHL season for just $5 million.

Likewise, the Outdoor Life Network seems ready to outspend ESPN in hopes of using NHL games to heighten its profile.

ESPN passed this spring on extending its NHL deal for $60 million annually. So unless ESPN was simply bluffing, figuring it would end up getting the NHL at a reduced price because no other bidders would step up, then it follows that ESPN won't ante up OLN's offer of about $70 million annually by today's deadline.

If so, OLN will join the ranks of networks that tried to develop from NHL's supposedly untapped TV potential. After SCA's run ended in 1992, ESPN regained NHL cable games, partly to help launch ESPN2 in 1993. In 1994, Fox announced a five-year broadcast deal at $31 million annually, partly because it had ventured into TV sports with NFL games getting hockey meant Fox Sport could become Fox Sports.

But even as Fox's tiny NHL broadcast ratings had been shrinking, Disney replaced Fox with new deals for ABC and ESPN that started with the 1999-2000 season and cost a whopping $120 million annually. Disney suggested its vaunted corporate synergies could work magic a type of wishful thinking in vogue in the late 1990s.

Instead, ABC and ESPN got teensy NHL ratings. In the 2003-04 season, ESPN's NHL games averaged 0.5% of its cable TV households ESPN2's drew 0.2%.

Not surprisingly, the NHL proved replaceable during last season's NHL lockout, when ESPN's hastily assembled shows drew ratings comparable to the previous season's NHL playoffs. And NBC, in a rare instance where an NHL TV rights fee seemed to reflect the actual viewer interest in the league, got NHL games next season without paying any rights fee.

Maybe the NHL's heritage the league formed in 1917, and the Stanley Cup dates to 1893 casts some sort of spell on networks otherwise awash in made-for-TV sports. It can't be the ratings: Based on recent years, it's possible to project the NHL's national ratings could hit zero in the not-too-distant future.

And yet OLN, owned by giant cable TV operator Comcast, wants this perpetual fixer-upper as a draw meant to expand the network. There's some logic: ESPN's 0.5% NHL average is higher than any regular series on OLN, where bullriding and Survivor reruns are top draws.

For the NHL, OLN might represent a TV sports version of the federal witness protection program: In addition to its puny ratings, it reaches about 26 million fewer households than ESPN or ESPN2.

It's theoretically possible Disney's ESPN will match OLN's offer, figuring on principle that Comcast's OLN can't be allowed to poach on any ESPN turf. Comcast is a big-enough rival that it tried to buy Disney last year.

Either way, the NHL seems ready to cash in on its eternally unrealized potential. Again.

The folks at HBO seem to be getting a tad desperate in the long days between Sopranos and post-Sex In The City.

CBS Moving to Find a New Look for News

By JACQUES STEINBERG The New York Times

Seven months after Leslie Moonves, the chairman of CBS, exhorted his colleagues to re-engineer the network's evening newscast, the drafting process has reached an apparent milestone: the news division has begun to record and edit prototypes of how that broadcast could soon look.

One version opens with a five-to-seven-minute presentation of the news of the day by John Roberts, the network's chief White House correspondent, complete with "two-ways" between Mr. Roberts and several reporters. After a commercial break, the pace of the broadcast slows, and two or three "60 Minutes"-style segments are presented, albeit not at "60 Minutes" length, the last of them light and more humorous. After another break, Mr. Roberts, who is neither seen nor heard introducing those segments, returns to wrap up the broadcast with a good-night.

The elements of that particular version - one of several, and more of an experiment than a polished pilot - were described earlier this week by three CBS News employees, including two who had been present during a taping late last month in a studio at CBS's broadcast center on West 57th Street in Manhattan. All said the process was far too sensitive for them to be identified by name. Some elements were reported on Tuesday by USA Today.

In an interview, Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News, confirmed the taping. But he cautioned that on that day, producers and executives had recorded a variety of material that could be edited in various ways as a means of experimenting with multiple formats. He also said that the participation of Mr. Roberts - once widely believed within CBS to be the probable successor to Dan Rather - should not be interpreted as a sign that Mr. Roberts (or anyone else involved) will be part of the next "CBS Evening News" iteration.

Such decisions, he said, have yet to be broached.

"It's not a casting call," Mr. Heyward said of the process. "This is not a test of who should be on the evening news. It's a test of how best to present a broadcast that plays a distinctive and important role in today's crowded news landscape."

He would not describe any of what had been recorded or how it had been edited. But one colleague who was present said several correspondents had taped introductions that could be presented in a way that elevates them to virtual co-anchors. In remarks to a gathering of television critics in Los Angeles in January, Mr. Moonves emphasized his desire to move beyond the "voice of God, single-anchor" format that has long characterized the evening news.

By various accounts within CBS, the effort to meet Mr. Moonves's mandate, rooted in a desire to attract a bigger and younger audience, has been painfully slow. In a sense, that is hardly surprising: it has been more than two decades since a broadcast network sought to make wholesale renovations in the architecture of its evening newscast. The last was ABC, which introduced a three-man anchor format on "World News Tonight" in the late 1970's, before scrapping the experiment (which was relatively low-rated) in favor of a more traditional structure that featured just one of those anchors, Peter Jennings.

In trying to elicit fresh ideas, Mr. Moonves has cast a wide net. Earlier this year he sought advice from executives far afield of the news division, including those who conceived the "Dr. Phil" talk show and others from MTV News. A report yesterday in The New York Observer said the network had asked dozens of college-age summer interns to give Olympic-style ratings - on a scale of 1 to 10 - to ideas for revamping the news.

And yet the recent taping at CBS News and the swirl of subsequent activity at the editing consoles suggest that the network may be in position, as soon as early fall, to resolve the question of what its next evening newscast will be.

"Leslie has not set a firm timetable," Mr. Heyward said. "But we're making good progress."

Asked whether Mr. Moonves had viewed any tape from last month's session, or would do so soon, Mr. Heyward declined to comment, saying only, "He's aware of everything we're doing."

Among the factors that would seem to be nudging CBS to make a decision well before year's end are the promotional opportunities afforded by its prime-time lineup - the most-watched of any broadcast network's last season - which begins its new season late next month.

The network has also seen its evening newscast, the lowest-rated among the so-called big three, lose even more ground since March, when Mr. Rather yielded the anchor desk to Bob Schieffer. The 6.6 million viewers that Mr. Schieffer's newscast has attracted on average each night since then represent a loss of about 4.2 percent, or 289,000, compared with the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen Media Research. Over the last five months, Mr. Schieffer's broadcast has drawn nearly 2 million fewer viewers than the ratings leader, "NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams."

There are competing reasons, however, for CBS to feel no urgency.

Since taking the baton from Mr. Rather, Mr. Schieffer has actually shed fewer viewers than Mr. Williams, who has lost nearly a half-million (or 5.2 percent) compared with the same period a year ago, when the broadcast was anchored by Tom Brokaw. ABC has lost about as many as CBS - nearly 300,000, or about 3.5 percent - at a time when it was using substitutes for Peter Jennings during his treatment for lung cancer.

With Mr. Jennings's death on Aug. 7, ABC now finds itself in need of a new anchor, though it is not expected to make changes on the scale CBS is contemplating. Still, it could be in Mr. Moonves's interest to let ABC News go first, particularly as ABC decides whether to move one of its most recognizable hosts, Charles Gibson of "Good Morning America," to the evening shift.

And there is always the possibility that CBS might hire a dark-horse candidate from outside the network. Katie Couric, perhaps the biggest star on network news, whose contract with NBC's "Today" expires next year, was quoted in The New Yorker this month as saying she had met twice with Mr. Moonves and would make a decision on her future this fall.

"It's still a work in progress," Mr. Heyward said of the news division's efforts to fulfill Mr. Moonves's mission. "We've built ourselves a lot of options. It's not clear which ones will be most effective."

Thanks Ken H.

I would guess that would mean InHD will be available on D* (and E*) by the first NHL game.

It will also complicate life for InHD, since neither Comcast (Phillies) nor Cox (Padres) will want their baseball games on InHD in the future.

This should be fun!

ESPN decides not to match Comcast's offer

By Darren Rovell ESPN.com

The NHL will have a new television home next fall.

ESPN, which has had a stake in NHL broadcasts since the 1992-93 season, informed the league on Wednesday that it would not match the offer put forth by Comcast.

"Tonight, we informed the NHL that we did not accept their final contract offer," ESPN and ABC Sports president George Bodenheimer said in a statement. "We worked very hard to build and sustain our relationship with the league and would have liked to continue. However, given the prolonged work stoppage and the league's TV ratings history, no financial model even remotely supports the contract terms offered."

In the 2003-04 season, NHL games on ESPN drew an audience in 416,000 homes and games on ESPN2 were watched in 209,000 homes.

In May, ESPN informed the league that it would not pick up the $60 million option it had to broadcast the league's games for another season. After the league and the players' association settled on the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement in mid-July, Comcast, the nation's largest cable television provider, became the most interested in picking up the NHL's broadcasts. Comcast offered a three-year deal worth more than $200 million, and ESPN officials were brought back to the table. They had until Wednesday to once again decide if it was in the network's best interest. Comcast and the league agreed to a two-year deal that can be extended up to six years.

"Over the years, thousands of great NHL moments were presented to our fans through the lenses of ESPN cameras," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said. "ESPN was a supportive partner, and both the National Hockey League and ESPN enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship. We wish ESPN continued success."

Comcast, which owns four regional sports networks as well as a majority share in the Philadelphia 76ers and Flyers, is expected to put its NHL games on OLN. An OLN spokesperson did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Over the past year, the channel has endured a major shift. The network's name is now what was once its acronym. The Outdoor Life Network is no longer and its motto is now, "We've Got A New Attitude." The hunting and fishing the network was founded on a decade ago is now mostly replaced with events ranging from the Tour de France and America's Cup to the All-Star BBQ Showdown. One of OLN's greatest assets is the 10 seasons of "Survivor" re-runs it purchased from CBS for a reported $10 million.

The deal appears to be a winning proposition for all the parties involved.

Despite a season-long work stoppage, the NHL will still collect a good deal of money on the sale of its broadcast rights. That's an amazing achievement, given that the league agreed to a revenue-sharing deal with NBC before the lockout that came free of any rights fee.

Since NHL programming is going to be OLN's most important asset, Comcast officials could be willing to spend more money to capitalize on the relationship. For the networks that have had hockey, including Fox and ESPN, investing in growing the hockey audience simply didn't pay off when considering how much more they had invested in other sports programming. The agreement calls for OLN to show Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup finals before NBC takes over for the remainder of the series. Comcast will also bring the NHL Network to cable systems in the United States, and provide on-demand game broadcasts and computer streaming of live games.

Comcast might also have additional motivation to spend -- to prove to leagues it is willing to be a great partner if leagues should seek to use OLN to build a sports network from scratch. Last year, Comcast offered an unsolicited bid of $66 billion to buy the Walt Disney Co., which owns ESPN. The offer was rejected by the Disney board.

"It seems clear that OLN is setting itself up as a competitor to ESPN," said Bodenheimer. "We welcome it. It will make us better."

The potential audience is smaller. ESPN is in 90 million homes and ESPN2 is in 89 million homes. OLN is in 63 million households, a 75 percent increase from the number of households the network was in four years ago. That makes it easier for hockey fans to find the channel and, if they don't have it, they might be willing to pay for it.

"With the NHL deal, OLN is now further away from being that niche channel for serious sports recreation enthusiasts and moves closer to the sports fan who is enthusiastic about sitting on his couch watching the sport he loves," said David Carter, principal of The Sports Business Group, a sports consultancy firm.

A year without hockey proved to ESPN executives that picking up the option or matching Comcast's offer didn't make much financial sense, even at half the price it paid when the deal started in 1999. In the NHL's place, ESPN filled the air with original programming, like "Bowling Night" and "Stump The Schwab." Programs like these drew ratings that were at least comparable to the number of people watching NHL games.

ESPN Passes on N.H.L. Television Rights, Ending 21-Year Relationship With League

By RICHARD SANDOMIR The New York Times

OLN won the cable television rights to the post-lockout National Hockey League yesterday after ESPN declined to match a surprisingly lucrative offer.

OLN will carry games on Mondays and Tuesdays and will pay $65 million this season, $70 million in 2006-7 and $72.5 million in the third season, which is at the option of OLN and its owner, Comcast. The contract could extend for three more seasons, also at OLN and Comcast's option. With 21.4 million subscribers, Comcast is the largest cable operator in the United States and owns several cable networks.

George Bodenheimer, the president of ESPN and ABC Sports, said that he told the league last night that he had refused to match the OLN offer. In a statement, he said that "given the prolonged work stoppage and the league's TV ratings history, no financial model even remotely supports the contract terms offered."

In a statement, Gary B. Bettman, the N.H.L. commissioner, praised ESPN for its past support. OLN and Comcast officials were unavailable for comment.

For the league, OLN's financial commitment is a triumph; three months ago, ESPN declined to exercise its option to pay the league $60 million to carry the upcoming season, reasoning that the lockout had greatly diminished its value.

OLN's deal mandates that Comcast carry the NHL Network, which is now only available in Canada, on its digital sports tier. If certain subscriber levels for the network are not reached after two years, Comcast would have to pay the league $15 million, said a television executive who is familiar with the OLN deal, but would not speak for attribution because the contract has not been signed.

OLN must pay the league $15 million more if it exceeds 80 million subscribers, the executive said. It now has 64 million, well below ESPN's 90 million.

For OLN, carrying the N.H.L. is a more than subtle shift in direction for a channel that is built on the Tour de France, plus hunting, fishing, rodeo, bullriding and adventure programming and "Survivor" reruns. In July, it de-emphasized its roots by changing its name to OLN from the Outdoor Life Network.

Comcast is also believed to be using OLN as a possible launching pad for a national sports network, and is interested in National Football League rights.

"It seems clear that OLN is setting itself up as a competitor to ESPN," Bodenheimer said. "We welcome it. It will make us better."

For ESPN, the refusal to match OLN's terms ends a 21-year relationship with the N.H.L., but one that has grown steadily less important because ratings have slipped and the network acquired National Basketball Association rights.

Wednesday's network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

ESPN Passes on NHL, Eyes Potential Challenger
By Ben Grossman and John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable

ESPN passed on matching Comcast's offer to put the NHL on OLN, then passed judgment on Comcast's claims it was not positioning the network to compete with ESPN.

OLN is certainly setting itself up as a competitor to ESPN, said George Bodenheimer, president, ESPN, Inc. and ABC Sports, in a statement late Wednesday night. We welcome it. It will make us better."

And regarding Comcast executives who on a recent earnings conference call denied any intent to reshape OLN to directly challenge ESPN, ESPN Director of Media Relations Josh Krulewitz added, Actions speak louder than words.

This after ESPN Wednesday night made the decision not to bring the NHL back.

Tonight, we informed the NHL that we did not accept their final contract offer, said Bodenheimer in a statement late Wednesday night. We worked very hard to build and sustain our relationship with the league and would have liked to continue. However, given the prolonged work stoppage and the league's TV ratings history, no financial model even remotely supports the contract terms offered. We wish the NHL all the best.

And as it turns out, ESPN's decision not to match Comcast's offer for the NHL television package may have been a result of more than just a high rights fee.

According to sources, Comcast's deal with the NHL to put the games on OLN also includes the genesis of an NHL network in the U.S., for which Comcast can assure distribution to 21 million cable households. The deal also includes a clause that the cable network carrying hockey will have to air the games on its primary sports network.

Those may have been deal breakers for ESPN, who first of all would not want to put the low-rated NHL on its main network, but would rather show the games on ESPN2. And unlike cable operator Comcast, ESPN does not have the ability to guarantee carriage for a startup channel.

As for the OLN deal, sources said Comcast offered to pay $65 million the first year, $70 million the second year, and an option for a third year at $72.5 million. (The previous deal was $60 million annually, a price at which ESPN previously turned down an option). Both sides have the option to pull out after the second year, including an NHL option to back out and shop for a new partner if OLN does not reach a guaranteed number of households by that time.

Further backing the talk that Comcast is shaping OLN to become a more mainstream sports network, sources said the company is sniffing around for smaller rights packages for big sports, including the Sunday-Wednesday baseball package currently held by ESPN, which expires this season.

Sources said OLN is a possible outlet for the package should ESPN not renew. ESPN also has a separate deal to air a limited amount of post-season baseball in a deal that came to Disney when the company purchased the Fox Family Channel, which held the rights. That deal expires at the end of next season.

OLN has also been mentioned as a possible suitor for a proposed Thursday-Saturday package of NFL games, although it remains to be seen whether such a package will be created by the league.

A new cable deal for the NHL would follow its agreement with NBC for broadcasts beginning this season, although the league will be paid no rights fees from the network in a profit-share arrangement.

More details on the info piratess posted here yesterday:

HBO's Extras Gets Extra Season

By Anne Becker Broadcasting & Cable

HBO has picked up a second season of Ricky Gervais' entertainment industry spoof Extras, before even premiering the first season of the BBC co-production.

The pay cable network's move follows a second season nod the received show yesterday from the BBC in England, where its first season has already been airing on BBC2 to glowing reviews.

The show features Gervais, who starred in and co-produced BBC's The Office, as a wannabe actor who can't land a big gig after leaving his day job, and features cameos from actors including Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Stiller and Kate Winslet.

Gervais is also a co-producer of Extras, along with comedy partner Stephen Merchant, who appears in the show as the agent for Gervais' character, Andy Millman.

HBO will debut Extras' first season Sept. 25 at 10:30 p.m., after the fifth season premiere of fellow entertainment industry parody Curb Your Enthusiasm.

The series is the first joint production on a comedy between HBO and the BBC. The two previously partnered on upcoming period epic Rome, and HBO Films' Dirty War and The Gathering Storm.

In its first season on BBC2, the show has doubled audience size in its Thursday night time slot, averaging 3 million viewers for its first four episodes.

This is not the first time HBO has renewed a series for a second season before the show even premiered. In 2001, HBO added a second season to Six Feet Under before its pilot aired.

Feels like a 'Lost' déja vu

By William Keck USA TODAY

KAHUKU, Hawaii The stars of the hugely successful TV drama Lost gathered Tuesday night in a tropical jungle on Oahu's Turtle Bay Resort to herald the Sept. 6 release of the ABC series' first season on DVD.

The setting of the party, thrown by Buena Vista Home Entertainment, was a re-creation of the plane crash that started the series. Having already "survived" that crash of the fictitious Oceanic Airlines Flight 815, the cast arrived to the tiki lamp-lit party in grand style.

First to step out of his chauffeured car: Matthew Fox (who plays Jack), dressed in a pink shirt and black suit, smoking a cigarette and escorting his wife of 14 years, Margherita, a former model.

"I thought we were going to be inside," marveled Fox as he started down the dirt carpet arrivals line. "I hope everybody brought bug spray."

Impressed by the party's theatrics, which included flight attendants, a tram and the eerie metallic clangs of the show's mysterious monster, was Terry O'Quinn (Locke), who "thought we were just going to come and have a few drinks in the woods."

"Powerful" was the word Naveen Andrews (Sayid) used to describe a local cover band performing in front of a large section of plane wreckage.

Female cast members were advised to wear sensible footwear. "It's Hawaii," reminded Maggie Grace (Shannon) in gold, strappy sandals. "No call for high heels."

Evangeline Lilly (Kate) arrived looking like a '60s-era go-go dancer in a super-short, vintage, yellow tweed dress with white, knee-high boots that were "made for walkin" the treacherous terrain.

Asked to comment on the vintage Batman T-shirt her party companion and cast mate Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) was sporting, Lilly simply said, "That's pretty cute."

Also looking tropical chic: Emilie de Ravin (Claire) in an elegant gown by Aussie designer Lisa Ho and Yunjin Kim (Sun), wearing a casual striped dress by Penguin.

Jorge Garcia (Hurley) brought his girlfriend of four months, Malia Hansen. The two are raising a rescued Chihuahua /dachshund puppy.

Missing from the party: young Malcolm David Kelley (Walt), who was not due on the island to shoot his scenes until later in the week, and new cast members Michelle Rodriguez (Ana-Lucia) and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Emeka).

"Michelle wanted to hang back and let the Season One guys be in the limelight," explained Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, who said he is close to signing a veteran female actress to play the role of a third new regular in the second season.

As cast members are added, Daniel Dae Kim (Jin), who is about to purchase a house on Oahu, hopes his character remains.

With Kim's character set to develop his use of English, the actor has been taking lessons to learn how to speak English with a Korean accent.

Barely making it to the party was an exhausted Josh Holloway (Sawyer), who arrived after 10 because he was filming scenes for the second episode.

At the party, Lindelof disclosed that Episode 3 will be the show everyone will be talking about.

"We go into the hatch in the first episode (airing Sept. 21) and sort of see what's in there, but it isn't really explained to us until the middle of Episode 3," he teased.

"That episode is going to blow away anyone who has ever said, 'You guys don't give enough answers.' "

ABC and ESPN to broadcast World Cup

espn.com

BRISTOL, Conn. -- ABC and ESPN will broadcast their fourth straight World Cup next year and will televise all 64 games in high definition.

The networks will not decide until after the draw on Dec. 9 how to split the games among ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, they said Wednesday.

All games of the tournament, which will be played in Germany from June 9 to July 9, will be broadcast live. For the 2002 World Cup, which was in Japan and South Korea, 58 games were televised live, with the final on ABC, 16 on ESPN and the rest on ESPN2. Because of the 13-hour time difference to the East Coast of the United States, games were on during the middle of the night.

All games were broadcast live during the 1998 tournament in France, with ABC televising 14, ESPN 27 and ESPN2 23. Germany, like France, has a six-hour time difference to the U.S. East Coast.

The networks, owned by The Walt Disney Co., acquired the rights from Soccer United Marketing, an affiliate of Major League Soccer. SUM said it basically gets the air time for free, sells advertising and covers production costs, while the networks' affiliates sell some advertising time.

Leah LaPlaca, ESPN's senior director of programming and acquisitions, declined comment on the financial arrangements.

At least 20 high-definition cameras will be used for each game by the host broadcaster. ABC and ESPN plan to have their announcers at a majority of the games but will have them call some of the games from studios in the United States.

LaPlaca said that ESPN/ESPN2 also plans to televise two European Champions League games most weeks when the tournament is going on this season. In recent years, ESPN/ESPN2 have broadcast only one game in many weeks.

SUM paid about $40 million to buy the U.S. TV and radio rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups and the 2003 Women's World Cup from German media company Kirch Group. Kirch purchased the rights from FIFA, soccer's governing body, in May 2001.

USA Today has a couple in their print edition -- I don't know about the web - but you could check

keenan:

Let's assume OLN doesn't add any subs, but it raises its fee a nickel a month a sub.

That 60 cents a year (based on 64 million subs) would be $38.4 million a year.

And if OLN does raise its subs total (as I assume it will) there will be even more money for Comcast. In addition, the value of OLN will increase at least somewhat.

So while the anemic ratings made the NHL a loser for ESPN, it is a good deal -- -- maybe even a very good deal for Comcast.

What will be most interesting will be to see how the NHL deal impacts InHD 1 & 2 going forward -- especially as it relates to making those channels available to E* and D*.

If InHD remains "unavailable" to D*, I wouldn't be surprised to see it retaliate by taking OLN off its starter "Total Choice" tier ($41.99) and sliding OLN over to the "Total Choice Plus" tier ($45.99).

That would cover any extra costs involved, deprive Comcast of several million viewers, and make it that much tougher for Comcast to hit its guaranteed viewer levels of 80 million homes.