I just finished watching the second installment of Ken Burn’s The War on PBS. Just like The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, Mark Twain, Empire of the Air, and The West, this epic is excellent. I saw bits and pieces of the first installment on Sunday and all of tonight’s and Ken Burns’ storytelling is second to none. The interviews from those who experienced World War II whether on the front lines, from the air or at the home front cannot be duplicated. Plus, the footage that Burns has found from the War in Tunisia, Sicily and Rome is amazing. The newsreels can be seen over on Burns’ The War site which is linked above. This is compelling television and I will be recommending this in the Primetime Viewing Picks for Wednesday and Thursday.
Darren Rovell of CNBC has the outcome of the bet he made with Texas oilman and big-time Oklahoma State booster Boone Pickens.
Over to the Sports Media Watch blog where Paulsen has the broadcast teams for TBS during the MLB Division Series (as I told you last week, NESN’s Don Orsillo will be involved). And here are over the overnight ratings from the weekend. An offshoot from Paulsen’s story about the weekend TV ratings is this press release from NBC Universal touting the numbers for Sunday Night Football for Dallas-Chicago.
David Barron of the Houston Chronicle in his Four DVR’s, no waiting blog says the Colts-Texans cleaned up in the ratings for the CBS affiliate. And Barron reviews the Sunday NFL pregame shows.
This is the official press release from Turner Sports about the announcer assignments for the MLB Postseason on TBS/TNT.
William Houston of the Toronto Globe and Mail has his take on the latest ESPN/MLB dispute.
Newsday’s Neil Best is also blogging tonight! My goodness! He talks about the 9.9 seconds of silence viewers had to endure during the halftime of tonight’s Monday Night Football game as Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser had trouble hearing each other for their mini-Pardon the Interruption segment.
The networks have selected the games and times for October 6. The Kansas-Kansas State game will be played at noon (11 a.m. local time) on FSN. Tim Griffin of the San Antonio Express-News reports that the Red River Shootout between Oklahoma and Texas will played at 3:30 p.m. on ABC and FSN will pick up the Oklahoma State-Texas A&M game for 7:30 p.m. Mike Dearmond of the Kansas City Star reports that ESPN has selected Nebraska-Missouri for a primetime 9:15 p.m. ET slot. CBS will air Florida at LSU, also in primetime. From the Detroit News, Eric Lacy reports that the Big Ten Network will pick up the Michigan-Eastern Michigan game. Minnesota at Indiana will also be on BTN.
GoDaddy.com has announced that Cincinnati Bengals’ WR Chad Johnson will appear in its ads on ESPN college football games.
Bill Ordine of the Baltimore Sun blogs about the bizarre Mike Patrick comments about Britney Spears during the Georgia-Alabama game.
John Consoli of Mediaweek writes that advertisers are flocking to the NFL on the league’s TV partners’ broadcasts.
Nick Daschel of The Columbian (WA) interviews long time Pac 10 Commissioner Tom Hansen about his years as the Commish and the conference’s TV contracts with ESPN and FSN.
Jason Buhrmester of Wired magazine writes about NFL Films digitizing its extensive library and if you know the history of NFL Films, this is a huge project.
David Goetzl of Media Daily News reports that in exchange for carriage on basic, the Tennis Channel gave an equity stake to DirecTV.
Congratulations to LC who has got his old 38Cliches site back so again, adjust your bookmarks accordingly. You can put 38cliches.com in your bookmarks again and you’ll be able to see his entire site in its original glory.
A lot of links for you tonight. I’m heading to bed as it’s close to midnight, but I’ll catch a bit of Letterman before I do. I’ll see you Tuesday morning.
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