MagneticMediaFed

Picture via Doug Mills/New York Times

First: sorry for the untimeliness in this post, but I’ve been busy working on the site’s redesign which you may or may not have noticed. Moving on.

FOX’s broadcast of Super Bowl XLII (that’s “42″ for those that don’t read Roman) was the second highest rated television program of all time coming in behind the finale for M*A*S*H. The game was seen by an estimated 97.5 million people (M*A*S*H reached 106 million people, though at a time when most people only had access to a handful of channels). I find this to be more or less astounding. Much of what contemporary culture is based on is the notion that there are very few things rallied around by everyone, and the steady decline in network television ratings is perhaps biggest example of this (followed closely by the lack of America’s appetite to consume large quantities of popular music). To see a singular event grab such a large percentage of our collective attention spans speaks highly about the event itself as well as providing a bit of reassurance to the networks that people will turn out en mass if there’s something actually worth checking out. But what is the subtext of these numbers? Do they suggest that the solution to the network’s audience migration problem lies solely in their ability to deliver something worth seeing (because there is a lot of television worth seeing that most audiences could care less about)? Or should we read into this that the magic lies in the very scarcity of the event itself? After all, what are the odds of getting a Super Bowl where the actual game was that good? More after the jump…

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Last Saturday my roommate and I sat down and watch all four episodes of the HBO Documentary/Reality/Commerical Floyd/Mayweather 24/7. For those who weren’t down with the series (and I wasn’t one until early Saturday evening) it was a four week, all-access presentation of Floyd Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya as the two trained for the title fight against one another Saturday night (on HBO Pay-Per-View).

The series was endlessly fascinating, not just because it showed both contenders training and all of the drama and storylines associated with that training, but because as the episodes went on we would see the two actually watching the program and responding to it. 24/7 wasn’t produced ahead of time, it was shot, edited and aired in about as close to real time as the medium allows. More details after the break…

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A couple months ago GQ profiled TNT’s Inside the NBA program which airs updates before and after their NBA coverage. The piece made it seem like Inside the NBA was without a doubt the weirdest sports highlight and commentary show ever. If I actually cared the slightest bit about the NBA I could absolutely see adding the program to my limited sporting-based queue. The fact that so many games are played out west and that the show doesn’t really air until way into the wee hours of the morning is an added plus given my nocturnal behavior. But again, who cares about the NBA?

Apparently I do. Or at least I’m going to as long as the Golden State Warriors are in the playoffs. I love underdogs, and thus I love Golden State. I also love that their best player is named “Baron.”

So because of my newfound love of NBA basketball, I finally got a chance to check out Inside the NBA. It is as good as advertised. The show features Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith in the typical studio set-up, but that’s where the familiarities end. Last night after Golden State gave up a sizable lead to the dreaded Mavericks and lost the game, the Inside post-game started with Johnson going over the highlights. Three seconds later Charles Barkley just starts talking about what the teams did right or wrong late in the game. Johnson then reminded Barkley that they were still covering the first quarter and then tried to get back into the play-by-play. Barkley responded with indifference and kept talking about the end of the game before asking aloud why they were even showing highlights in the first place since they had just finished watching a two hour basketball game. It was totally off the wall and crazy, and brilliant sports television (especially if you happen to be the type of person who finds sports broadcasting tedious at best).

Inside the NBA combined with a hopefully winning Golden State Warriors team equals NBA excitement. This is a good thing since the NBA playoffs last until August. Tune in if you find yourself craving some competition at one in the morning.

ESPN is going to be airing The World Series of Poker this summer in high definition. I find this interesting for the following reasons: 1) it suggests that we’re starting to approach the time when HD is the norm and standard definition is something of an anomaly in broadcasting. 2) This also assumes that HD is no longer thought of as a luxury, but instead as a necessity. And 3) have you seen the people who normally play in the World Series of Poker? It’s like looking at the cast of The Devil’s Rejects wearing green visors and smoking unlit cigarettes. It’s a veritable state-fair of side-show acts and tourists — now available in crisp, clean, high definition.

Is this really what we want? Shouldn’t this great new technology be saved for those things in which we really want to see the detail? Like bass fishing. Or women’s beach volleyball. Seeing the wringles in a green felt table does not make me want to go out and drop an M-note on a new plasma.

First of all, I’m a big PTI/Tony Kornheiser fan. Some may say, “What? Why him?” To which I frequently respond, “Hey, I think he’s funny. Get off my back, mom!” He’s especially great on the radio. Anyway over the past couple of weeks “Mr. Tony” has said a few things regarding contemporary music that struck me as curious (especially given the fact that he has a segment on his radio show called “Old Guy Radio”). Granted, this is a TV Blog, not a music blog, but he is first and foremost a television personality, so I’m going to let it skate through (oh, and the second part of this story involves Omaha, Nebraska, where I spent 23 years of my life).

1) Two weeks ago on the radio show Tony said, seemingly out of nowhere, “Two for Arcade Fire. Two for Arcade Fire,” apparently in reference to an upcoming show they would be playing in Washington D.C.

2) Yesterday on PTI, one of the topics was about Dana Altman’s decision to return to Creighton University (in Omaha) after coaching briefly in Arkansas. Here is exactly what Mr. Kornheiser said:

I don’t know much about Fayetteville, Arkansas, but I know a little about Omaha. They have good indie bands there. They have Connor Oberst and Bright Eyes. They got Warren Buffet — if he lives someplace, it’s got to have something to recommend it…

Who knew the man was a connoisseur of modern indie rock. Who knew he even knew the term “indie rock.”

Funny.

Now that baseball season is in full force, and now that I’m watching games during every free moment I have (right now I’m watching last night’s Mets victory on a replay), I’ve started to notice something about baseball broadcasts that isn’t sitting well with me: the on-screen scoreboard.

Here in New York, the Met games are broadcast on Sportsnet New York. Last season they put the scores in the upper left hand corner — where a score should, nay, MUST be in any baseball broadcast. This season they followed ESPN, FSN, and recently YES (the Yankees broadcasting station) by replacing the very practical score-box with a score bar that stretches across the top of the screen. Here is why I hate the bar:

Baseball is a static sport. There isn’t a lot of movement. Because of this you can place the on-screen score in a such a position that it stays completely out of the way in 90% of all situations. The upper-left hand corner of your screen is that location. Think about it. Most of the game is shot from behind the pitcher. He is in the lower left and the batter is usually in the upper right. That upper left hand corner is completely empty.

The bar, on the other hand, covers the entire top of the screen and shrinks your viewing area because they’d never frame the shots in such a way that the score would run over a player or the action.

I asked a friend at work why this was. His response made perfect sense, “Now that the games are being broadcast in HD,” he said, “the wide-screen format doesn’t work with the box… only the bar.” He went on to explain that having the score box on a wide-screen TV would actually position it NOT in the upper left hand corner, but almost a third of the way across the frame (so that it works on both HD and SD TVs).

I now understand “why” but it still doesn’t make it any better. The bar is good for speed-based sports like football and basketball and NASCAR. Baseball should stick with the box. Maybe once everyone is watching TV in 16:9 they’ll be able to return the box to its former glory: in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Yes, that 2032 season is going to be so sweet! GO METS!

You smell that? That’s the smell of baseball. I got a big ol’ whiff of it last night as my Mets put the hammer down on the dreaded, world champion Cardinals. Yes, baseball is in the air, and we’re all better for it (even if it means some of the lighter TV fare I’ve “enjoyed” this winter will have to take a back seat watching Jose Reyes steal 100 bases).

Unfortunately, there is no joy in Mudville, my cable provider (all cable providers) will not be offering the MLB Extra Innings game package this year unless some last minute talks can work out a compromise.

A few months ago Major League Baseball cut a $700 million exclusive deal with DirectTV to carry the out-of-market game package, much to the chagrin of the 27.6 million digital cable subscribers in America. While In Demand, the cable consortium owned by Comcast, Time Warner and Cox Communications which distributes the package on cable, have offered to match the money, the current sticking point is the new MLB Channel that is suppose to premiere in 2009 and whether the cable companies will get a piece of the action if they agree to carry it.

To me what all of this means is I’m not going to be able to spend the next 7 days watching baseball games from all over the country that I never knew I was interested in watching in the first place. To me, buying Extra Innings always seemed a little crazy given the amount of television I’m currently watching, but the free preview was always so sweet. It was like a fun-sized candy bar. Small, delicious, and yet a reminder that any more will likely make you fat.

Maybe a deal will be made before the day ends.

Follow the story and read more at Cable360.net

Yesterday, Wednesday May 31st, Pardon the Interruption (PTI), the afternoon sports-talk/scream-fest on ESPN (weekdays, 5:30pm et) broadcast its 1000th show. Click below for more…

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