Wednesday Links

Well, I’m still recovering from the cancellation of Jericho. Maybe another network can pick it up because the story needs to be told. I know, it’s a TV show, but I really got into it this season. I hate it when a good show is canceled for no good reason.

Ok, let’s go to the links.

ESPN made a few announcements yesterday as it held its own upfront yesterday. Among them, a new primetime magazine called ESPN Reports which will involve veteran reporters Jeremy Schaap, Lisa Salters and Rachel Nichols. According to ESPN, the show won’t involve 15-20 minute pieces synonymous with “60 Minutes” and “Real Sports”, but be a fast-paced magazine.

In addition, ESPN’s SportsCenter Minute will be brought over to ABC when sports programming is on the network.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today pokes fun at ESPN’s new programming.

There are other features that ESPN will offer this fall and Boston Sports Media Watch has the details.

To be honest, I like the ESPN Reports idea. More sports journalism is good. The SportsCenter Minute on ABC is good. But the over the top, over promotion of “This is SportsCenter 300”, the hype for ESPN’s SportsCenter ad campaign is too much. ESPN is all about self-serving promotion, of course.

Continuing on ESPN, the sports behemoth plans to televise the minor league starts of New York Yankee Roger Clemens. According to New York Newsday, the network will only televise the games as long as Clemens is in the game. When he’s pulled, the network will dump out of the game.

And remember Mobile ESPN which sunk like a fallen rocket? Well, ESPN is trying again, but instead of making it a standalone service, it’ll be called ESPN MVP and be made as part of Verizon Wireless. Subscribers can choose to download the ESPN MVP platform.

We’re finally going away from ESPN in this morning’s links. The Big Ten Network launches this fall and will televise a bunch of sports from the conference. But like the NFL Network, it’s having a tough time picking up major cable companies. The channel will be on DirecTV and on smaller cable systems, but TimeWarner and Comcast have not signed up.

Here’s the broadcast schedule for NBC Sports over the next two months.

Over to the network upfronts, CBS will do its presentation today. Gary Levin of USA Today reviews the new shows for the fall.

TV Guide has the update on the CBS fall schedule.

Mark Burnett is pissed that The Apprentice wasn’t picked up by NBC.

Michael Ausiello has his weekly Ask Ausiello column on TVGuide.com.