Fang's Bites

CBS Starts NCAA Championship Game on The Reverse Angle

It was really strange watching the start of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Game. CBS started off show UConn going from left to right and after the Huskies scored the first basket, it suddenly switched to its main camera showing Butler going from left to right. People were tweeting about it and were confused, however, the always enterprising Mocksession website run by Timothy Burke, a.k.a @Bubbaprog, has the evidence showing that CBS did indeed start off on reverse angle.

Out of courtesy, I won’t post the picture here as Timothy works hard to provide video clips and grabs so you don’t have to. And visit his site and follow his Twitter feed. It’s great stuff.

A Few Saturday Links

As Championship Weekend continues in college basketball, time to do some linkage while I can.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News says while the eyes of March will be focused on CBS and CBS College Sports for the NCAA Tournament, several networks are looking towards the summer when negotiations on a new TV contract could begin.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says if Tiger Woods makes his return to the Tavistock Cup, you and I won’t be able to get tickets.  

David Goetzl of Mediapost looks at ESPN producing a two hour sports block for ABC. 

Alistair Barr of Marketwatch.com says ESPN may have ticked off American soccer fans by hiring an all-British announcing crew for the World Cup.

Ron Chemelis of the Springfield (MA) Republican notes that NESN’s Jerry Remy is back doing Red Sox Spring Training games, although today’s game was barely seen due to technical difficulties.

Dan Lamothe of the Republican’s Red Sox Monster blog says Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz appeared on a Comedy Central show this week.

Pete Thamel and Richard Sandomir of the New York Times look at the possible expansion of the NCAA Tournament and what it could mean for CBS or any network that becomes the official TV partner.

Alan Pergament of the Buffalo News gets an update from Sabres TV analyst Mike Robitaille who’s been recuperating from a car accident earlier this year.

Laura Nachman says actor Corbin Bernsen will be talking to a Philadelphia sports radio show about his movie, Major League.

In the Washington Examiner, Jim Williams says college basketball dominates the docket today.

Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News looks at how pay per view has become the big player in boxing.

Mel Bracht of the Daily Oklahoman says Tulsa native and former New York Knick John Starks  plays a prominent role in ESPN’s documentary on Reggie Miller.

In his media notebook, Mel has some various news and notes.

Suzanne Hoholik of the Columbus Dispatch goes behind the scenes with the Fox Sports Ohio production crew during a Blue Jackets game. 

Sandy Gholston at Michigan Live says CBS College Sports is attempting to bring NCAA Division II sports to the forefront.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News posts his Friday column which was missing for some reason at the paper’s website.

Leighton Ginn from the Desert Sun in Palm Springs, CA says the BNP Paribas tennis Open will be on TV more than ever this year. 

Chris Zelkovich of the Toronto Star says the Olympics were very good to the radio partner of the Canadian Olympics Broadcast Media Consortium.

The Sports Media Watch notes that last week’s Honda Classic did decently on NBC.

Amanda Bruno at Batter-up with Bruno was none too pleased over NESN’s technical difficulties today.

Neither was Ian Bethune at Sox & Dawgs.

Chris Byrne at the Eye on Sports Media is puzzled over the confusion over one particular English Premier League game today that Fox Soccer Channel said it carried live, but ESPN “spoiled”.

The Big Lead says that Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco is telling ESPN, “Child, please.”

The Big Lead also ranks ESPN’s college basketball analysts. 

And we’re done.

NESN is Having Technical Difficulties

During tonight’s Philadelphia Flyers-Boston Bruins game at TD Banknorth Garden, NESN started having audio difficulties. They began late in the second period when Andy Brickley’s microphone died in the middle of a replay. Jack Edwards had to go solo for a time, when NESN’s engineers gave both men regular stick microphones instead of their headset mics that you often see.

While the second intermission was ongoing, NESN tried to fix the problems, but could not. At the beginning of the third period, studio analysts Barry Pederson and Mike Milbury along with host Kathyrn Tappen were seen (luckily, NESN has their studio crew live from the Garden for home games). They explained that Barry and Mike would do the play-by-play and color as Jack and Andy were heading to their broadcast position behind one of the goal’s. Luckily, this lasted for just 13 seconds when we heard Jack & Brick coming in, but they were uncomfortable from a new vantage point.

They did adjust, but during a commercial break, we saw Barry & Mike again, explaining that Jack & Andy were going back to their regular broadcast position. Mike was about to do play-by-play, but that experiment ended just before the faceoff as we heard Jack & Andy return. Since then, there have been no more audio problems, but it certainly made for an interesting broadcast.

At least NESN did not have to resort to having someone call a game off a monitor as it did last year during a Hockey East game.

Hopefully, someone will pull the video and put it up on YouTube. I’ll post it here if it goes up tomorrow.

Beginning of the Workweek Links

We have lots of material on this first real workday of 2009.

We begin with David Scott of Boston Sports Media Watch who jumped on NESN for botching the end of the Boston College-North Carolina game.

The lovely Jessica Heslam of the Boston Herald has the tepid NESN explanation of what happened.

Jessica reports that WEEI has signed Big Show blowhard Glenn Ordway to a new contract.

We now have the arrival of Jay The Rat on the internet. Tom Mantzouranis of AOL Fanhouse reports that Jay Mariotti along with the lovely Lisa Olson, formerly of the New York Daily news and Kevin Blackstone will be writing for the site.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today writes that CBS Sports has signed Bill Cowher to a contract extension for 2009. Michael says former Detroit Lions GM Matt Millen could return to TV full-time, especially after his performance this past weekend on NBC.

Newsday’s Neil writes that NBC plans to have Millen join its Super Bowl coverage.

Now let’s go to some stories from the Sports Business Journal. The SBJ has an in-depth section on college sports media. The following stories are from that section.

First, John Ourand talks about ESPN and CBS trying to make their numbers work for their new college football contracts.

John writes that regional sports networks are also trying to stay ahead of the changing landscape in college sports.

Michael Smith discusses how colleges are trying to manage their web content.

Michael looks at how Raycom Sports is fighting to keep the rights to the ACC after losing the SEC syndication rights to ESPN.

And the SBJ lists the people to watch in college sports media.

Now to stories from this week’s SBJ issue.

Tripp Mickle and John Ourand give us the major players in the Olympics US TV rights negotiations.

Tripp says the United States Olympic Committee is going into overdrive to sell sponsorships for the 2009-2012 period.

John Ourand has some predictions for the sports media in 2009.

Don Muret profiles the architect who helps to fix sports stadium projects when they go awry.

There’s the Terrible Towel and now Terry Lefton says the Super Bowl gets a “trophy towel”.

Eric Fisher says the NFL is now marketing high definition online game replays.

Jon Show says golfer Vijay Singh has agred to make Stanford Financial the dominant logo on his bag and clothing.

Plenty of links from the SBJ and thanks to Bill McGrath for letting me know what stories are available each week. It’s greatly appreciated.

The New York Post’s Phil Mushnick feels the NFL Wild Card games were overloaded with statistics and useless replays. This is the first time in months that I actually agree with Mushie.

The Baltimore Sun’s Ray Frager shares some notes that he scribbled during the Ravens-Dolphins game yesterday. And Ray says Baltimore watched the NFL playoffs even when the Ravens weren’t involved.

Tom Jones of the St. Petersburg Times reviews the weekend in TV sports.

Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News wonders why it took so long for Bill Cowher to announce that he’s not going to coach in 2009. Barry also looks at the weekend in the NFL. Finally, Barry sees Morning News colleague Tim Colishaw taking a sports radio gig.

Ed Sherman of Crain’s Chicago Business talks about the ratings success of the NHL Winter Classic. And Ed talks about Jay Mariotti joining AOL Fanhouse.

Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune says the MLB Network shows some early promise.

Leonna Heuring of the Sikeston (MO) Standard-Democrat writes that a local native who competed for the Miss USA title and now a model, will appear in a Super Bowl ad.

Dusty Saunders of the Rocky Mountain News says the MLB Network is off to a “perfect” start.

The San Francisco 49ers have announced that Ted Robinson will become its radio voice starting next season.

William Houston of the Toronto Globe and Mail writes that the death of a junior hockey player has sparked debate among Canada’s hockey analysts.

Chris Zelkovich of the Toronto Star says TSN’s Gord Miller and Pierre McGuire went a bit overboard with the praise at the end of the Canada-Russia game during the World Junior Hockey Championships.

Thanks to the Big Lead for the following links. Apparently, Jason Whitlock of Fox Sports.com has lost his mind, attacking fellow writers and wanting someone to police us sports bloggers like AJ Daulerio of Deadspin. Of course, Deadspin reponds.

This will do it for now. More later.

The First Four Hours of The MLB Network Did Not Necessarily Go Smoothly

Thank goodness for preview DVD’s and DVR’s because I was getting ready to watch the launch of the MLB Network live when I got called away to do something.

Let me review the first four hours of programming on the MLB Network, but before we get to that, I understand that subscribers to Time Warner Cable in the Albany/Schenectady market could not watch due to technical problems.

Ken Schott of the Schenectady Gazette wanted to watch the launch, but at 6:10 p.m., all he saw was a black screen. Then he asked MLB Network to see what was going on. An hour later, Ken still had no luck. As of 9 p.m., the channel was still dark. But later, Ken could see something, but it was not the MLB Network. And Ken gave up trying to watch the MLB Network at 10:30 p.m. But it finally made the air in the New York Capital Region around 11 p.m. ET.

And Maury Brown from the Biz of Baseball has heard from Comcast customers in Denver, Portland and Phoenix having trouble watching the launch. If you had trouble watching the launch and you were supposed to get the MLB Network, e-mail Maury at maury@businessofsportsnetwork.com or me at kzfone@gmail.com. We would both like to hear from you.

So apparently less than 50 million people had access to the MLB Network for the first day of programming.

But for those who did see the first four hours of the MLB Network, they were treated to Hot Stove and Don Larsen’s Perfect Game.

Hot Stove with host Victor Rojas, co-host Harold Reynolds, along with analysts Al Leiter and Barry Larkin showed some good chemistry in their first show. Hazel Mae was showcased on the update desk and Trenni Kusnierek narrated a feature on Roberto Clemente. To kick off the MLB Network, Commissioner Bud Selig welcomed viewers to the channel.

TBS’ Statement on the ALCS Game 6 Technical Problems

I got to a sports bar in Seekonk, MA right before 8 p.m. and while I knew I was not going to get a seat to watch Game 6 of the ALCS between the Red Sox and Tampa Bay, I certainly was not expecting to see “Bloopers and Practical Jokes” with a pre-stroke Dick Clark. Then when the show signed off at 8:07 p.m. and went to the “Steve Harvey Show”, you knew something was wrong.

There was no explanation at first and this angered many fans who wondered what exactly was going on. There was no crawl at first, and all we wanted was something to let us know what was happening.

Luckily, I had downloaded MLB At Bat for my new iPhone and I was able to update a group of people about the BJ Upton home run. Fortunately, the feed for the game returned in the first inning and the patrons at the sports bar calmed down before a riot broke out.

Around 10 p.m., I received an e-mail from Turner Sports trying to explain what happened. Because I could not post it here, I sent it over to the Sox & Dawgs blog asking the fine people over there to publish it. Thanks to Steve for putting it up immediately.

I do have the statement for you now that I’m home:

STATEMENT FROM TBS REGARDING ALCS GAME 6

Two circuit breakers in our Atlanta transmission operations tripped causing the master router and its backup – which are necessary to transmit any incoming feed outbound – to shut down. This impacted our live feed from being distributed to any of the other networks in the Turner portfolio and caused the delay in our coverage. Both our primary and backup routers were impacted by this problem. We apologize to baseball fans for this mishap that caused a delay in our coverage.

I wish that a crawl had been put up as soon as possible allowing us to know right away instead of being left in the lurch. Fans will understand, but not after 10 minutes into the game.

If you’re still wondering, that’s the poop from Turner.

A Wednesday Link Thing

Let’s do our links for today.

Starting with a very strange story out of ESPN.com. David Scott of Boston Sports Media Watch breaks the news that the website somehow listed the late Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle in its transactions page and inexplicably left it there for two days.

USA Today’s Michael Hiestand has CBS’ spin on the lower ratings for the NCAA Tournament.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union has a story on two local TV stations showing highlights of the NCAA Tournament without the permission of CBS Sports.

Michael David Smith of the AOL Fanhouse blog says CBS’ Billy Packer is the least popular man among blog readers.

The Kerrville (TX) Daily Times talks with native Carter Blackburn who made his NCAA Tournament debut on CBS last week.

Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle says FSN Bay Area changes its name to Comcast on Monday. John Ryan of the San Jose Mercury News also has a story on Comcast officially taking over FSN Bay Area. And in his blog, Ryan says Comcast may show the A’s-Red Sox game on April 2. Jonathan Okanes of the Monterey County Herald says Comcast is planning plenty of local programming around its sports teams.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell is narrowing down his Minor League Baseball Logo Contest to the Elite Eight in Day 13 of the voting.

Jessica Heslam of the Boston Herald says DirecTV and Comcast are apologizing for outages that left Red Sox and A’s fans in the dark yesterday morning.

Newsday’s Neil Best talks with longtime Yankees’ public address announcer Bob Sheppard who will miss the home opener. And Neil has some more from Bob in his blog.

Kevin Modesti of the Long Beach Press-Telegram accuses ESPN of East Coast bias when it comes to its baseball coverage.

Linda Moss of Multichannel News reports that Comcast subscribers in northern New Jersey will be able to watch Mets games in HD this season.

The Orbitcast satellite radio blog says XM Satellite Radio is bringing back its “Play Ball!” channel on March 29.

Paul Gough of the Hollywood Reporter says the NFL and NBC will move the season opener up one hour to 7 p.m. ET on September 4 so as not to conflict with John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.

Marty James of the Napa Valley (CA) Register says the NFL Draft will look different this year on ESPN and the NFL Network.

Tom Jones from the St. Petersburg Times writes in his Two Cents blog that former NBA player Derrick Coleman got injured during the taping of the Spike TV show, Pros vs. Joes.

TNT will have a Western Conference NBA doubleheader this week.

Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer profiles the Voice of the Cavs, Joe Tait, who calls his 3,000th game tonight.

William Houston of the Toronto Globe & Mail looks into other NHL announcers who pulled off similar doubleheaders that CBC’s Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson did on Saturday.

Laura Nachman says a midday talk show host for sports radio WIP in Philadelphia is out.

Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune talks about his first experience as a fill-in talk show host on sports radio WMVP on Tuesday.

Martin Henderson of the Los Angeles Times writes in the Varsity Times Insider blog talks about ESPN buying a girls’ and women’s basketball website.

David Gurian-Peck in the Daily Pennsylvannian, the school newspaper for the University of Pennsylvannia, talks with UPenn alumnus Andrea Kremer of NBC Sports and HBO’s Real Sports.

That’s it for now.

More Tuesday Stuff

It’s time to give you some more links today.

John Ryan of the San Jose Mercury News says A’s fans who got up at 3 a.m. today were just as outraged as Red Sox fans with the DirecTV outage.

Phil Swann of the TV Predictions says viewers who had DirecTV’s HD package did not experience the outage.

Sergio Ibarra of TV Week says FSN will double its HD baseball broadcasts.

Newsday’s Neil Best who insists that he’s not blogging during vacation, continues to blog during his vacation and says SNY’s new late afternoon lineup is 90 minutes of yelling. And Neil finds a clip of WFAN’s Mike & the Mad Dog in which Mike Francesca likes Brandon Inge a lot.

The Foreign Policy magazine’s Passport blog is bewildered at NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol’s statements on Communist China’s human rights record.

Gregg Goldstein of the Hollywood Reporter says a David Mamet mixed martial arts movie will have its gala premiere at the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival on April 25.

Julianne Smolinski of TV Week says ESPN has promoted Burke Magnus to Senior Vice President of college sports programming. Alex Weprin of Broadcasting & Cable says Magnus replaces a retiring executive.

Mike Shields of Mediaweek reports ESPN has bought a website devoted to girls’ and women’s basketball.

Antoine Pitts of the Ann Arbor (MI) News writes that ESPNU will exclusively carry the NCAA Men’s Hockey Tournament regional finals leaving many fans in the dark.

Tim MacMahon of the Dallas Morning News live blogged Pacman Jones’ appearance on Michael Irvin’s show today.

The Springdale (AR) Morning News says CBS Sports will broadcast an LPGA event in July.

The Louisville Courier-Journal says both Louisville and Western Kentucky will be seen both be seen locally even though they’re playing at the same time in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday night.

Lucas Wiseman of USBC Communications says Lynn Swann and Nelson Burton, Jr. return to network television to call a bowling event on CBS.

That’s it for now. I may not have an evening update. Keep checking your RSS feeds.

DirecTV Talks!

Finally, the Boston Globe has heard from DirecTV and its explanation is still not sufficient, but it’s something. Reid Laymance has a short statement from a spokesman.

“We experienced some temporary technical difficulties early this morning that resulted in some channels not being available to customers. The majority of our channels were not affected and we have since corrected the problem. In the case of the Red Sox season opener, we were able to bring the NESN channel back up at the top of the seventh inning. ESPN2 came back on later, after the game was over. (Customers who have NESN or ESPN2 in HD were able to see the entire game.) We deeply apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our customers – and particularly Red Sox Fans. ESPN2 is planning to carry a repeat of the game at 2 p.m.”

Some temporary technical difficulties? What were they? It’s not a very good explanation.

DirecTV Is Still Silent

About four hours since I sent an e-mail to DirecTV asking what caused its outage, leaving millions of fans in the dark for this morning’s Red Sox-A’s game, still no word from its Public Relations Department.

Maury Brown of the Biz of Baseball is asking if anyone has heard from the satellite provider to contact him.

Apparently, everyone at DirecTV is still hiding underneath their desks. All we ask is for an explanation. The longer the silence, the worse the pressure will get from subscribers.

This DirecTV Outage is Irritating Not Just Me

Well, I sent an e-mail to DirecTV asking what happened with the system outage this morning that effected the two channels that carried the Red Sox-A’s this morning. So far, the DirecTV public relations people are hiding under their desks.

Some channels were affected, others were not. I could receive ESPN, ESPNews and ESPN Classic, but not ESPN2. I had several sports channels on the Sports Pack, but not NESN, YES, MSG Network or Comcast SportsNet New England. It not only pissed off your humble blogger, it also pissed off viewers across the nation.

The lovely Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe who was live blogging the game from Tokyo was the first to hear about it and you can read the comments throughout the morning. People are pissed.

The following two links come courtesy the Boston Sports Media Watch. First, Richard Defendorf of CNET says the outage ended around 10 a.m. ET, but not in time for the game to air. It had ended by then.

Eric Wilbur of Boston.com says some Comcast cable customers in Southeastern Massachusetts also experienced outages of ESPN2 and NESN, but it was due to something else.

Seth Mnookin who wrote Feeding the Monster had the same problems.

SportsbyBrooks was also on top of the story.

So far, no explanation from DirecTV. I’ll post it when I receive it.

Opening Day Links

It may be early for baseball to open the season, but there’s always something special about Opening Day. For Red Sox fans, it means hope springs eternal, but having won two Championships over the last four years, it’s a different feeling. I would have liked to have a quickie review of what ESPN2 and NESN were doing for the Red Sox-A’s early morning broadcast, but DirecTV had an system outage and both channels were out. I could get ESPN, ESPNews, ESPN Classic, but not ESPN2. I could get FSN Bay Area which did not pick up the game as the A’s rightsholder, but I could not get NESN, YES, MSG Network. I called DirecTV for an explanation and got a recorded message about an overnight system outage and the channels would return shortly, but when I left my house at 7:30 a.m. ET, the channels were still out. I’ll send an e-mail to DirecTV to ask what happened.

Let’s get to your links.

Brandie Jefferson of the Providence Journal says Red Sox fans flocked to a popular sports tavern this morning for Baseball and Breakfast.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times has a story on what will be an underlying theme for NBC Sports throughout the year, having to deal with an authoritarian, oppressive, Communist regime in China, while trying to televise the Olympics. Sandomir mentions in his story that while the situation in Tibet has worsened, NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol has refused to criticize China even though the Commnist government has already begun to censor the network from showing shots of Tienanmien Square during the Games. This is a story Fang’s Bites will be watching. With a situation that could get worse as the year progresses, we’ll see how he handles the broadcasts if things get out of hand in Tibet and protests increase in Beijing.

Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News feels CBS’ Billy Packer does not go far enough in criticizing coaching decisions, in fact, Raissman feels Packer covers for them.

Newsday’s Neil Best who is supposed to be on vacation is blogging on his days off. He looks over the latest figures from ESPN.com’s Tournament Bracket challenge. And Neil says the former Program Director of 1050 ESPN Radio in New York has a new gig in the Steel City. Neil says using split screens to show two games during the NCAA Tournament is not what CBS has in mind.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says all three games in the NCAA Men’s Hockey Tournament to be played in Albany will be shown on ESPNU. Pete also has some thoughts from ESPN2′s telecast of the Red Sox-A’s this morning.

Dave Del Grande of the Oakland Tribune reports that FSN Bay Area will be undergoing a name change as Comcast takes over officially on March 31. Del Grande talks with FSN Bay Area GM Ted Griggs about the transition to Comcast SportsNet.

We’re in Day 12 of Darren Rovell’s Minor League Baseball Logo Contest.

Kevin Cary of the Charlotte Observer says after Sunday’s upset of Georgetown in the NCAA Men’s Tournament, Davidson has become media darlings.

Broadcast Engineering reports that Verizon FiOS TV customers will have access to CBS Sports Video on Demand for NCAA Tournament highlights.

From the Akron Beacon Journal, George M. Thomas says CBS announcing crews did a good job during the NCAA Tournament.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel talks with CBS’ Dan Bonner about the Wisconsin Badgers.

The Lansing (MI) State Journal has an editorial saying while a deal is close, the Big Ten Network and Comcast have squandered a lot in the interim.

Mike DiMauro of The Day of New London, CT says ESPN explored two stale subjects in regards to women’s college basketball.

Kathy Orton of the Washington Post says the University of Maryland wanted the early slot today in the NCAA Women’s Tournament, but ESPN thought otherwise.

The Charleston (WV) Daily News says the Cincinnati Reds will be seen on local cable systems.

Jeff Richgels of the Capital (WI) Times says Charter Communications will pick up the Milwaukee Brewers HD telecasts this summer.

Keith Groller of the Allentown Morning Call says a new local minor leauge baseball team will get a lot of coverage on TV.

Clarence Hill, Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram writes that Michael Irvin will have Pacman Jones as his guest on his radio show.

Good story from the Arizona Daily Wildcat, the student newspaper of the University of Arizona. Mark Roy writes that ESPN’s Mark Schlereth is documenting his son’s exploits for the Arizona baseball team for ESPN.com.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that actor Tony Hoty has died. You don’t know that name? Old school NFL fans may remember him from CBS promos in which he would always end with “I’m a biiigg fan!”

The International Fight League will have a weekly Saturday at midnight show on FSN starting next month.

Robin Erb of the Detroit Free Press writes about a Wayne State University science professor who’s a big part of FSN’s Sport Science show and is up for several Sports Emmys.

That’s it for now.

Some Technical Problems for NCAA March Madness on Demand

As I logged into March Madness on Demand at NCAA.com, there were a few technical problems. First, there was audio for the Georgia-Xavier game, but no announcers. A note did appear underneath the video player saying the techies were aware of the problem. Then when we finally heard Craig Bolerjack and Bob Wenzel, their voices were garbled.

Then as many people got into the viewing room, the video was constantly jumpy and had to constantly buffer. Thank goodness NCAA.com provided the audio from Westwood One so I could keep track of the game. However, some glitches for CBS and NCAA.com at the beginning.

In addition, the same audio problems occurred at the beginning of the Michigan State-Temple game and I could not enjoy Screamin’ Gus Johnson.

I am glad to see CBS provide its HD picture so we can enjoy the game in its full glory.

However, I do wish we can see the CBS halftime show with Greg Gumbel, Clark Kellogg and instead of having Jason Horowitz just talk about what we just saw. I’m sure Jason is a nice guy, but I’d rather not see him at the half. I’m used to having switches to other games at the half.

Anyway, I’m hoping CBSSports.com and NCAA.com will have these glitches worked out for the second window at 2:30 p.m. ET.

We’re Experiencing Technical Difficulties…

Tonight, I’m tuning into the local news in Providence, RI when I see Channel 6, the ABC affiliate here, run a Frazier rerun. Did ABC6 all of a sudden cancel its 11 p.m. newscast? Did the channel decide to change its affiliation from ABC at the last minute? No!

But the channel is saying, “We are currently experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by” on the bottom of the screen.

I wanted to check out the weather forecast as we’re expecting some snow on Thursday, but I certainly didn’t expect to see “Frazier”. ABC6′s ratings at 11 p.m. aren’t necessarily great as compared to its competition, NBC10 and WPRI-TV, but maybe airing Frazier reruns at 11 p.m. might not be a bad idea.

Back in the 1990′s, I was working for WPRI and we were tipped off one day that ABC6′s news director was going to anchor the noon news because there was no one available to do so. So we rolled tape and gathered to watch her. It was a train wreck. I’m not saying ABC6 has a history of train wrecks, but I’m sure those in the newsroom tonight are frustrated as hell not being able to run its 11 p.m. newscast tonight. Very strange.

UPDATE, 11:25 p.m. – Channel 6 News has finally hit the air. The only explanation, “We apologize for the technical difficulties.” Apparently, the channel will hit Nightline late.