Late Thursday, Entercom announced that it had entered with a partnership with Nassau Broadcasting to set up what? A regional sports network, the same thing reported by both David Scott of Boston Sports Media Watch.com and the Boston Herald. Scott has the latest details in this crazy story. This certainly weakens the bargaining chip for John Dennis & Gerry Callahan. Unless CBS Radio has plans to sign them for WBCN or Greater Media signs them for WTKK, there isn’t much D & C can do but go back to WEEI. As a result, classical station WCRB will keep its format and Nassau will simulcast WEEI’s signal on its stations across New England. What a turnaround of events.
The NFL Network is close to reaching a deal to broadcast an exclusive edition of NFL Total Access for MyNetwork TV starting next month. John Consoli of Mediaweek says the MNTV edition would air on Saturday nights at 9. This would help MyNetworkTV gets some male viewers and NFL Network will use the platform to urge viewers to call Comcast and Time Warner to urge those companies to carry the channel.
Neil Best of Newsday announces that he’s going to be shutting down his blog while he goes on vacation (of course, he said he would do this on his last vacation and ended up updating his blog throughout the week). And he also announces that the overexposed Ryan Seacrest will be the “entertainment host for the Super Bowl XLII pregame show on Fox. Please, no. TV Week also picks up the Seacrest story. Oh god.
College football will be back with us in a few short weeks and the Sports Media Watch blog researches the ratings for games from last season.
Judd Zulgad from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune says the rhetoric between the Big Ten Network and the cable companies is going to get ramped up over the next few weeks. Doug Lesmerises of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer says a story that surfaced last week that the Big Ten Network would allow viewers to watch the first two Ohio State football games despite not having an agreement with Time Warner Cable is not true. Randy Petersen of the Des Moines Register says BTN and Mediacom Cable are talking about an agreement. That’s encouraging for Iowa fans.
CNBC’s Darren Rovell has a follow up entry to yesterday when he discussed the soon-to-be Tiger Woods-designed golf course. Originally walk-only, apparently the course will indeed have carts and Rovell remains steadfast that no carts would have been a bad business decision.
Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch talks to ex-heavyweight boxing champ Buster Douglas who’s embarking on an acting career.
The Biz of Baseball blog says Blackberry users can now access MLB.com with one click by downloading an icon.
Pat Hickey in the Montreal Gazette says CBC won’t be showing as many Toronto Maple Leafs games on Hockey Night in Canada this upcoming season.
And those are the links for tonight. Friday will be our huge megaupdate. Watch for it.
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