Well, I keep finding stuff and I need to pass them along to you, my loyal visitors.
From Canada, there’s a shakeup for the venerable Hockey Night in Canada on CBC. The legendary Bob Cole has been signed to a two year contract, but will have a reduced role. He’ll no longer be the lead play-by-play man and his last season will likely be the 2008-09 season. Cole’s long time partner, Harry Neale has been signed to a one year deal and his role will also be reduced. Expect Jim Hughson who was signed in 2005 to replace Chris Cuthbert to be the new voice of HNIC. And the Executive Producer Joel Darling has been moved to a new role in CBC Sports. William Houston of the Toronto Globe and Mail has the exclusive story.
From the Victoria Times-Colonist (I love the names of these merged newspapers from across North America, the Post-Intelligencer, the Journal-Sentinel, the Post-Gazette, the Times-Dispatch, the Times Picayune, the Star-Tribune, but it also shows that a lot of papers had to combine to survive, a sad sign of the times), CBC garnered pretty decent ratings for the FIFA U-20 World Cup that concluded this past weekend. And Chris Zelkovich of the Toronto Star says CBC analyst Craig Forrest was on a personal crusade against diving during the tournament.
You may have seen the lovely Campbell Brown’s last Weekend Today appearance on NBC Sunday. She’s going to CNN on September 1. I throw this in here because I like Campbell. Back to sports.
Dusty Saunders of the Rocky Mountain News of Denver says NBC had a crew of 11 to talk about “Football Night in America” which re-premieres in September. Does Dick Ebersol need that many for a network promotion?
Tom Jones of the St. Petersburg Times has his review of the sporting weekend including the work of Paul Azinger and Nick Faldo on ABC during the Open Championsihp.
Jane Levere of the New York Times writes about a clever ad campaign involving Serena Williams and Roger Federer for the US Open Series.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s Bob Wolfey says the ratings for Brewers games on FSN Wisconsin and WITI-TV continue to sizzle.
ESPN2 and the Tennis Channel will air the the last three days of the Acura Classic concurrently, meaning they’ll alternate coverage during that time.
MASN continues to pick up programming during the fall and winter months when they won’t have the Orioles or Nationals. The RSN has signed a contract with the Big South Conference to show both selected football and basketball games.
The owners of Dish Network, Echostar, have filed a petition with the Federal Communications C Commission, seeking to have the Big Ten Network declared a Regional Sports Network so it can negotiate a reasonable price to pick up the channel. According to the petition, Echostar says BTN is trying to position itself as a national network.
Versus has announced it’s adding the BYU/Utah game to its 19 game college football schedule.
You got more links than I thought you would in this update. Back on Tuesday.
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