Byline: Tom Hoffarth
Go ahead and poke your head inside the big doors to see what's going on - just like Shaq, Howie and J.B. do on the commercials.
Stage 2 at the old KTTV news studios over on the Fox lot on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood has been transformed into a 5,000-square-foot sports eye-candyland.
Ceiling-to-floor and wall-to-wall banks of TV monitors. A digital ticker scoreline as big as a Westwood theater marquee. A Forum-sized, state-of-the-art video scoreboard hanging overhead. Watch out for that crane - it's a jib camera in the middle of everything, swooping around like a Tilt-a-Whirl.
Toto, we aren't in ``Press Box'' anymore.
Today, when Fox Sports Net comes crashing through the crepe paper, it'll be whooping it up as more than just having its name changed from Prime Sports.
The all-sports cable channel will be at the same place on the tube. The same guys doing the same games - Lakers, Kings, Ducks, USC, UCLA, Clippers, etc. - are back.
But with a Fox ``new attitude'' injection, which started a year ago when Rupert Murdoch's troops scooped up the regional network to help support the backbone of their other now-famous sports dynasty, viewers should forget what used to be and wonder what's going to come next.
Fox Sports News will be the circus hub of activity for Fox Sports Net, which are the seven regional affiliates - including Fox Sports West - that Murdoch bought at the recent Liberty Sports garage sale.
Along with regionals in the Southwest and Northwest, the Rocky Mountains, the Midwest and the East, there are about 20-million cable homes with access. Most, of course, are already plugged in, so it's not like ESPN trying to shove another new and improved juice bar down your throat.
Robert Banagan, the Fox Net V.P. of News, says the toughest part of all this will be coordinating a nightly live jigsaw puzzle with remotes from arenas across the country for updates of games that the other Fox regionals are covering.
``If you're into this, your 6-to-midnight will be spoken for every night,'' said Banagan, the 33-year-old Val Kilmer look-alike who commands a production crew of nearly 200.
The plan starts with a nightly 6-7 p.m. pregame studio show, hosted by Kevin Frazier with former Lakers star James Worthy to comment on the NBA side and ex-NHL headbanger Craig Simpson (what is it with Fox and ``The Simpsons''?) doing hockey insight. It'll feel much like the over-the-air Fox NFL or major-league baseball studio pregame shows - without anyone nicknamed ``Psycho'' or a relative of Harry Caray.
Then comes the game.
Then comes an immediate wrap-up, a combination of highlight packages but spiced up by live player interviews from the locker room and on-site comments from the broadcast teams. If the game ends at 9:42 p.m., no waiting until 10 p.m. for the news, which will be an intricate process of cutaways and standing-by no one of a faint heart should attempt at home.
The ``Fox attitude'' only goes so far, of course. No glowing Ducks pucks. Chick Hearn's partner on Lakers telecasts has not changed his name to ``L.L. Stu-Pac.'' Although it doesn't hurt that Kings analyst Jimmy Fox has that built-in marketing thing going for him.
In head-to-head competition with ESPN ``SportsCenter'' or CNN's ``Sports Tonight'' - plus the 24-hour all-sports news channels each will have launched by year's end - you'd think this sensory overload would put sports junkies into an optical coma.
``ESPN deserves the respect for how they've defined what sports news has become,'' said Banagan, a former feature producer for ``Baseball Tonight'' on ESPN. ``But we're not real competitors with them. What will motivate a Lakers fan to turn the channel after a game if they can get more in-depth Lakers news from our sources?
``We have to play to our strengths - the teams and the loyalty of the fans. And we have here network-quality TV for regional carriers.''
Alan Massengale, an original ``Press Box'' anchor, co-hosts the 10 p.m. to midnight show with former ESPN2 staffer Suzy Kolber. But the fact that less than half of the Prime Sports ``Press Box'' crew are included in the Fox Sports News renovation also indicates the new sign on the Santa Monica Boulevard offices in Century City isn't just for decoration.
``The one thing that won't change here is the local focus,'' said Kitty Cohen, the Fox Sports West general manager, who also hinted about increased high school coverage. ``We've had high-quality production, but Fox takes us to the next level.''
Tom Reilly, the former ``Press Box'' headman who has become the executive producer of assignments and special projects on Fox Sports News, was there at the humble beginning of ESPN's ``SportsCenter'' 17 years ago.
``This is nothing like that,'' he said, as he scanned the scurry of activity from his office.
``Nothing like this has ever been attempted,'' adds Banagan. ``It's not `Press Box' with new graphics. It's an entirely new visually and audio stimulating sports news and entertainment vehicle.''
Which trickles down to the print ads that suggest you boys go ahead and dump your girlfriend if she suggests you're watching too much sports on TV.
Hmmm. Sports or girls . . .
By the way, knuckleheads. It's just a joke. You can take this testosterone 'tude too seriously.
The dispute over why NFL ratings are taking a slide this season. Fox and NBC have been questioning the methods that Nielsen Research uses. Nielsen says its system is working just fine. Now, according to Inside Media, the two say the way Nielsen recruits new families to use the service is messing them up. Nielsen is trying to get more families in its 5,000-home sampling. According to Nick Schiavone, the Senior VP/Research for NBC, this is lowing NFL ratings. ``(It is) skewing homes to better educated, higher income (families) that watch less football.'' No duh.
One city's ex-team is another city's problem. At last count, the Raiders were 6,000 tickets short of selling out Monday night's home game against Denver, meaning ABC would have to black out the contest in the Bay Area if those duckets don't go. Sound familiar? In all three home games this season, the Raiders have failed to sell out, meaning Fox and NBC have had to black out the games locally.
What chokes
The birthing of ESPNEWS out into the big bad world. Initial indications are that Madonna's new baby will be seen by more people. ESPN says 1.5 million homes nationwide will get it - mostly satellite dish owners. Marcus Cable, which has a system in Glendale, says the soonest it'll have the third ESPN channel is Jan. 1. Today at 4 p.m., ESPN will step aside to simulcast parts of the new channel - ESPN2 did some of that Thursday - which gives viewers a snippet of what they could be seeing. ESPN, which reaches 70 million homes, maintains that ``consumer demand'' is the reason for this No. 3 son. It's not a bad idea. The production looks slick and simple. But it's that kind of thinking that has ``Nick at Night'' doing a tribute next week to the comic genius of the late Morey Amsterdam.
The way TV folks size up Fox's World Series ratings. The headlines scream that the six-game series drew a 17.4 mark/29 share - the third-smallest ratings ever for the Fall Classic. That's baseball's image problem rather than a reflection of Fox's production. The prime-time TV ratings for Oct. 21-27 show World Series Games 6, 5, 4 and 3 were the country's top four-rated shows of the week. Which again isn't that impressive when the TV world is littered with ``Townies,'' ``Mr. Rhodes'' and ``Clueless.'' How about the fact that the World Series outdrew NBC's coverage of the '96 NBA finals (16.7)? But wasn't the Chicago Bulls beating up on the Seattle SuperSonics kind of anti-climatic, and didn't this World Series involve the No. 1 TV market and the city that just hosted the Summer Olympics? You see. There's an element of ``Spin City'' to everything in TV ratings-speak.
The ``discovery'' Los Angeles magazine made in its November issue: Scott Ferrall is making noise on the radio!
A half-hearted attempt to enlighten readers about the KLSX-FM Lipstick City self-made phenomenon is mostly a rehash of the hash you've seen before on him - except why he was canned by XTRA-AM. (Actually, a second- and third-listen to Ferrall over the past few months shows that when he mellows out and actually talks to readers, he's pretty darn smart. And no one picks football games like he does.)
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