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Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
New Era Radio: Daily Distractions
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New Era Radio: Lady Parts
On this week's show ... Pasqual's Porn Weekend; is Hope Solo getting a pass for being obnoxious because she's a cute white girl? And W.T.F. is going on with the Jackson family?
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Episode #18: The Electric Slide
On the latest edition of New Era Radio...
Marcas dusts off his long-standing (and one-sided) feud with Jaleel White. The guys break down the 'Melo and D-Will trades. Cacique professes his love for the NFL Combine. And we give out our own Oscars.
Thursday's Birthday Shout-Out: How Can Bronson Arroyo Get You Into A New Car?
Do a YouTube search for Cincinnati Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo and you'll find videos of him in action on the mound and plenty of him performing with his band.
You'll also find just as many with him starring in local Cincinnati-area commercials. It's not uncommon for a team's star player to do local advertising. But Arroyo's made a cottage industry out of it.
Case in point: This commercial for Champion Ford. It's the Arroyo Trifecta - a chance to show off his hair, his humor and his *ahem* use of salty language.
You'll also find just as many with him starring in local Cincinnati-area commercials. It's not uncommon for a team's star player to do local advertising. But Arroyo's made a cottage industry out of it.
Case in point: This commercial for Champion Ford. It's the Arroyo Trifecta - a chance to show off his hair, his humor and his *ahem* use of salty language.
If he could have worked the leg kick in there, it would have been perfect.
Episode 17: Impostors!
This week...the Lakers drive Cacique to L.A. (Lakers Anonymous), how Albert Pujols could end up as The Most Hated Man In The History of Everything, a celebrity threesome you never thought of (for good reason) and when it's not good to be compared to Chris Rock.
Jim Gray Booted From Golf Channel Coverage
Johnson was penalized two strokes for arriving late for his first-round tee time and explained to reporters that he was given bad information by his caddy. The caddy, Bobby Brown (no, not that one), took responsibility for his mistake. But after the round was over, Brown had some words for Gray about the reporter's attempt to ask Johnson about the penalty while the round was going.
The Golf Channel, perhaps sensing the potential of another dust-up like last year's Jim Gray-Corey Pavin feud, released a statement trying to nip things in the bud:
"Our aim is to provide the best possible golf coverage for our viewers. Anything else is a disservice. In order not to provide further distraction, we've decided to remove Jim from this particular assignment," Golf Channel spokesman Dan Higgins said.No doubt the network wants to avoid the embarrassment of having their reporter get snubbed on national TV, the Chad Curtis famously did Gray during the 1999 World Series. But it also leads you to wonder if Gray realizes how much he's continually torpedoing his own career. He was considered to be nothing but a shill after playing the patsy during LeBron James' "Decision".
Most fans consider sideline reporting jobs to be dubious at best. Much of their in-game reporting centers on checking on injuries and nearly all of that information is given by the teams' PR people.
Golf might be the one sport in which they still have major value. Unlike in the four major sports, there are no media relations reps to give in-round reports on the health of a particular golfer. They also have the ability to get to areas on the course that the announcers in the tower can't see and report on a player's lie, course conditions, slopes, angles, etc.
Fans have long since run out of patience with Gray. With his future at The Golf Channel now in question, you wonder how much longer networks are going to put up with his shenanigans.
Lakers, Time Warner Agree to 20-Year Cable Deal
The immediate impact is that Laker road games will no longer be seen on local KCAL 9. But the new channels' carriage throughout the Lakers' territories in Southern California, Nevada and Hawaii should help make up for the households lost with the lack of local television. For the Lakers it's an obvious win, especially with the addition of the Spanish language network in a market with a large Spanish-speaking population that loves the team.
On the surface it would seem to be distressing that a team with a $91 million payroll is on the verge of reaping an even greater windfall with a huge new TV deal. While the league does allow teams to keep all of the revenue it makes from it television contracts, the NBA's salary cap should prevent the league from running into Major League Baseball's problem of the Yankees versus everybody else.
For Time Warner, it appears to be a win on many different levels. First, the Lakers get great ratings, meaning the network will have no trouble generating ad revenue. Second, as Kurt Helin points out at Pro Basketball Talk, it gives all of the other teams in the market leverage. The Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers, Angels, Kings, Ducks, USC and UCLA have all been fighting for space on L.A.'s two sports cable networks - Fox Sports West and Fox Sports Prime Ticket. With pro and college basketball and hockey all going at the same time, it can get crowded. Suddenly the other entities have a lot more leverage when it comes time to re-up.
But it also means Time Warner will have negotiating leverage of their own when it comes to having the networks picked up by other distributors like Charter, DirecTV and Dish Network. Reminiscent of 1997 when then-Dodgers owner Rupert Murdoch moved the team's Opening Day game to Fox Sports Net West 2 (now FS Prime Ticket) in a successful effort to strongarm cable operators who had balked at carrying the network. Similarly other carriers will be more willing to get a deal done if it prevents Laker fans from switching services to see their team.
However it could mean Time Warner subscribers may have to keep waiting for the NFL Network. The operator has been loathe to work out a deal with the league and the revenue that could be earned from this Laker deal means that (in L.A. at least), TWC won't be in any hurry to bend to Roger Goodell's demands. Although with the way things are going, NFL Network may not have too much new programming to show anytime soon.
LeBron James Is A (Ratings) MVP
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| There have been a lot more witnesses in Miami this year |
There's also another thing he's good at - pulling in ratings.
According to John Ourand of Sports Business Journal, the Miami Heat have seen the biggest ratings jump from last year, becoming the team with the third-highest ratings in the - a 118% increase. Love him or hate him, it seems that you've gotta watch him.
Not only did LeBron take his talents to South Beach, but he apparently took took a lot of eyeballs with him as well. The Cleveland Cavaliers have suffered the biggest drop in ratings, taking a 53% hit. As bad as that is for the Cavs, the good news is that the Cleveland Indians aren't likely to steal a whole lot of viewers.
Ourand's report also shows that having an eye-popping breakout star isn't necessarily a key to ratings success. While Blake Griffin might be one of the most exciting one-man shows running in the NBA, the L.A. Clippers aren't seeing it translate into viewers. The Clips are the second-lowest rated team in the league (the Lakers, by comparison, have the fourth-highest ratings and top overall viewership).
Even in a town where peanut vendors are known for their showmanship, you'd think that Griffin's feats of posterization would be good enough to create some sort of spike in ratings. Then again, the Clippers can't even keep their biggest fans happy, it's probably too much to ask of them to start reaching out to potential new customers.
Wednesday's Birthday Shout-Out: John Kruk Goes "Eastbound and Down"
Sure, John Kruk still wears a solid face full of scruff when you see him on Baseball Tonight. But he's downright baby-faced compared to how he looked as the ringleader of the 1993 National League champion Philadelphia Phillies.
That, of course, was the same year that Kruk has his infamous (and hilarious) All-Star at-bat against Randy Johnson. But Kruk's hilarity continued off the baseball diamond. Rocking a look that would later become a staple of the Kenny Powers Collection, Kruk became a favorite guest of David Letterman.
In this interview, he gave some answers that would be right at home in an episode of Eastbound and Down. The only difference being that Kenny Powers might have spiced them up with a few well-placed expletives and an off-color joke about Canadians.
That, of course, was the same year that Kruk has his infamous (and hilarious) All-Star at-bat against Randy Johnson. But Kruk's hilarity continued off the baseball diamond. Rocking a look that would later become a staple of the Kenny Powers Collection, Kruk became a favorite guest of David Letterman.
In this interview, he gave some answers that would be right at home in an episode of Eastbound and Down. The only difference being that Kenny Powers might have spiced them up with a few well-placed expletives and an off-color joke about Canadians.
But who knows? Maybe Kruk has his own line of self-help tapes floating around somewhere?
Friday's Birthday Shout-out: Daunte Culpepper Commits a Recruiting Violation
Imagine a time when Daunte Culpepper could come to your door looking to recruit your son to play football at Central Florida. Then imagine seeing your son's picture splashed across every college football website in the country because he was illegally recruited by someone "representing UCF's athletic interests".
The first part was humorously re-enacted on "The George Lopez Show" complete with George doing his best Cecil Newton impression for Culpepper and Donovan McNabb. Other highlights include Daunte getting his roll on as well as taking a shot at McNabb's inability to win a Super Bowl. Perhaps because of his poor cardiovascular endurance?
Today's Birthday: Spying On David Eckstein
Not all that long ago, David Eckstein was a World Series MVP, picking up his second ring playing for the St. Louis Cardinals. But as "Just Enough" turns 36 today, we take a look back to his younger days. Back when a fresh-faced young shortstop had just won his first World Series trophy patrolling the middle infield for the Anaheim Angels.
So what does one do after helping lead a perpetually star-crossed franchise to its first ever World Series title? Make a cameo appearance on She Spies, of course. While the acting chops of teammates Scott Spiezio and Adam Kennedy are hard to deny, it's Eckstein's deft use of props that puts the piece over the top.
It's really no surprise that Eckstein would choose being an EMT as a side hustle. I mean, we're talking about a guy voted "Most Helpful" in his high school graduating class.
Looking back, it's hard to tell what the best part of that epic 40-episode series was. The cameos by acting legends like Stuart Scott and local LA news personalities Fritz Coleman and Fred Roggin. Or the totally believable fight scenes.
So what does one do after helping lead a perpetually star-crossed franchise to its first ever World Series title? Make a cameo appearance on She Spies, of course. While the acting chops of teammates Scott Spiezio and Adam Kennedy are hard to deny, it's Eckstein's deft use of props that puts the piece over the top.
Looking back, it's hard to tell what the best part of that epic 40-episode series was. The cameos by acting legends like Stuart Scott and local LA news personalities Fritz Coleman and Fred Roggin. Or the totally believable fight scenes.
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