Breaking: Miami Herald & sports editor Jorge Rojas already in mid-season form as they ignore BigTenNetwork's televised ballgames

Breaking: Miami Herald & sports editor Jorge Rojas already in mid-season form as they ignore BigTenNetwork's nationally-televised football games.

"Breaking," that is, if by breaking you mean every Big Ten football and basketball game they've televised for the past three years, whose games have never been listed in the Herald's daily Sports on TV.

http://www.bigtennetwork.com/
http://www.bigtennetwork.com/subindex/programming

Right, because there's nobody in South Florida who's originally from the Midwest, or who are alums from those eleven schools in South Florida.
I mean I only know about 100-125 myself, many of them well-known names locally.
Brilliant!

That's why the folks at the Herald and likely many of you with DirecTV in South Florida also missed the phenomenal Appalachian State upset of Chad Henne's over-rated Michigan team in the very first BTN broadcast, because the Herald didn't list it.
But I saw that amazing game LIVE.

I was laughing to myself in the fourth quarter as the game went "Instant Classic," knowing that the Herald had, once again, been caught with its pants down.

Par for the course over there in the Sports Dept., as the details of the Marlins finances coming from DeadSpin and not them proves rather conclusively.
http://deadspin.com/5619235/florida-marlins-financial-documents/gallery/

How does a supposed media reporter/columnist like Barry Jackson continue to not just ignore but act seemingly oblivious of the BTN, month-after-month, year-after-year, when other college conferences desperately want to emulate the cash-cow and national coverage the Big Ten teams already provides?

Good question, why don't you ask him?
But before you do that, consider the chicken-and-the-egg of this paradox: that's why he's Barry Jackson, that's why it's the Miami Herald, and that's why he's there and not somewhere else.

Once again, if you think about it a bit, you answer your own question!

You remember the BigTenNetwork, don't you?
They're the Chicago-based TV network beloved by advertisers that is one of the main reasons that the University of Nebraska leaves the Big 12 Conference effective next Fall for the national exposure and TV money that comes from having their football and basketball games available ALL OVER THE COUNTRY.
Where each of the current eleven member school gets roughly $22 million a year?

Plus, traditional non-revenue sports, where Nebraska excels and actually make money, like Men's Baseball and Women's Volleyball, where they're multiple NCAA Women's Volleyball champs, will also get seen all over the country, even in California and Hawaii and New England.

That's the sort of thing that helps national recruiting, don't you think?
A not insignificant consideration for a small state like Nebraska, whose state population is less than Miami-Dade and Broward's combined, and who has thus always had to recruit nationally, especially in Texas, for football.

And what does the University of Miami have again in terms of a TV deal?
Is that game of theirs tonight against FAMU on TV anywhere?
No.

The Randy Shannon TV Show is on what channel on what date at what time?
Nobody even knows whether he has one!

But in the Midwest, among real sports fans, they know exactly what time and when and where the myriad coach's TV show comes on, and the BTN even repeats the shows during the week for national coverage, which is how I came to watch the Bill Lynch Show this week.

Meanwhile, the Herald has NEVER written a serious article specifically about the BTN, which I know for a fact because I've checked their archives so many times.
The answer is always the same: ZERO.
Congrats One Herald Plaza!

Another David Landberg and Jorge Rojas success story!
That's why your sports section is so decidedly third-tier.

Tonight:
Marshall at Ohio State on DirecTV Channel 610
Towson at IU on DirecTV Channel 611 at 7:30 pm.

With encore showings in the days to come for folks like me.


Chicago Tribune
Big Ten could see TV money skyrocket with expansion
As number of subscriptions rise, multiplication adds up to considerable sum
May 13, 2010
By Teddy Greenstein | Tribune staff reporter
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-05-13/sports/chi-100514-big-ten-expansion-greenstein_1_btn-big-ten-network-tv-executive

Chicago Tribune
Big Ten big winner in divisional set up
Hard to find downside in way league divided while protecting most rivalries
September 01, 2010
By Teddy Greenstein | ON COLLEGES, ON GOLF
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-09-01/sports/ct-spt-0902-greenstein-big-ten-footba20100901_1_dave-brandon-pat-fitzgerald-ryan-field

Chicago Tribune
Rosenblog by Steve Rosenbloom
Big Ten's new set-up: NU wins, Illinois loses again (and again and again)
http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/rosenblog/2010/09/big-tens-new-set-up-nu-wins-illinois-loses-again-and-again-and-again.html

The New York Times College Football homepage and blog, The Quad:
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/sports/ncaafootball/
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/

The Dallas Morning News's influential College Sports blog and Sports Media blog:
http://collegesportsblog.dallasnews.com/
http://sportsmediablog.dallasnews.com/

Mr. College Football blog by Tony Barnhart:
http://blogs.ajc.com/barnhart-college-football/

Athlon College Football website: http://www.athlonsports.com/college-football

Tom Jicha says Jake Tapper is better-suited than Christiane Amanpour to host ABC News "This Week" -says move to her is a "mega mistake."; He's right!

I'm trying my best to catch-up here on the blog on a number of media-related news stories that I've noted and written some thoughts about over the past few months, but never quite gotten around to actually posting for one reason or another. Today is a start on pulling those stories out of the ink well and bringing them to your attention.

Curiously enough, on Friday, I saw that over at Tom Jicha's TV Plus blog at the Sun-Sentinel that he'd just written about one of those subjects: whether or not ABC News was making a big mistake by bringing in former CNN multi-tasker Christiane Amanpour to permanently host their "This Week" public policy/talking heads program on Sunday mornings, taking over the reins from interim host and ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper, who took over after George Stephanopoulos took over the duties at Good Morning America.
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/

I'd written a number of what some friends thought were some pretty persuasive arguments about why the move could turn out rather quickly to be yet another in a long line of recent mistakes where the American pundit-ocracy and East Coast media had prematurely labeled someone or something they had a connection to or rooting interest in, a great success, long before the American people had gotten a chance to vote with their remote controls and emails.

Sun-Sentinel TV critic Tom Jicha took a more direct approach than me in his blog and has simply taken to describing the move to Amanpour as a "mega mistake."

He's right, of course, though for more reasons than he lets on in his piece.

It seems clear to me that no matter how poorly Amanpour does in the comparison with Stephanopoulos or Tapper, especially in her ability to move the show along and cut-off a guest or panel member going down a blind alley, her many loyal friends in the chattering class would never actually say it was a disaster in quite the same eager and enthusiastic way that they did with Campbell Brown's CNN show.

There, though Brown's been gone for what seems like forever, even while actual viewers have known for five weeks that she's heading out the door, CNN's graphics crawl at the bottom of the screen STILL invites us to be lovely and talented Campbell's Facebook friend. Frankly, that's been making me laugh for months on those occasions when I watch CNN at night, which are few and far-between. http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/campbell_browns_time_at_cnn_coming_to_a_close_165720.asp

As we get closer to Amanpour's coronation in August, I'll bring up my own points on why I think the move to her will prove less-than-satisfactory for American TV viewers living west of the Hudson, but for now, check-out what Jicha is saying.

-----

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

TV Plus blog

ABC should keep Tapper as host of This Week

by Tom Jicha

June 24th, 2010 3:23 PM

Each week brings a new reminder of the mega mistake ABC News is about to make bringing in Christiane Amanpour as the host of “This Week.”

Jake Tapper should have been the first choice and is demonstrarting weekly that he is the ideal choice. He keeps the show moving and is equally tough on representatives of both sides of the political spectrum.

Later, Jicha writes: Who knows if Amanpour is. Her perspective is global, always has been. This is not a character flaw. It could be said it is an attribute. But it is a negative for a program driven by domestic political discussions.
Read the rest of the post at: http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/tv/2010/06/abc-should-keep-tapper-as-host-of-this-week.html

Hardly Breaking News: Older women love the Winter Olympics but Hispanics and African-Americans are completely ignoring Vancouver's pride and joy

Lacey Rose of Forbes magazine dropped a great little news nugget or two yesterday that I've heard expressed many times in years past by other media/sports writers I like and follow, but which bears special mention now as the Vancouver Winter Olympics chugs towards its Closing Ceremonies in a few days, hours after the U.S. vs. Canada ice hockey Gold Medal game results in somebody leaving disappointed, likely Team USA.

From her perch at the Forbes blog, The Biz Blog, -media, Hollywood and celebrity- Lacey first mentions that folks on Madison Avenue are very disappointed in the Olympics TV demos from an audience-reach p.o.v. because it's skewing way too older female, which makes a lot of their trendy ad buys nothing but wasted dollars down the drain.
Surprise!

Chicken or egg?
NBC Universal's on-air talent thinks nothing of talking incessantly about a female figure skater's dead mom and any resentment between U.S. Olympic ski team members Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso, prior to and since the Olympics started, Vonn and Mancuso, the Best of Rivals http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/sports/olympics/17ski.html , but now you're surprised that guys are tuning-out your soft-focus, pastel coverage after days of hearing you talk about the same thing?
"Among viewers 55 and older, ratings are 82% higher than the national average, according to Nielsen."

While on an errand late this afternoon, I heard a very well-produced and critical perspective on PRI's The World via WLRN-FM, http://www.theworld.org/ by Carol Hills titled
More live coverage of Olympics outside US, criticizing NBC Universal's absurd policy of tape-delayed (and overly-chickified) coverage compared to what foreign TV broadcasters are beaming back to their eager audiences around the world: LIVE coverage of everything as it happens.
You know, the method preferred by genuine sports fans around the world?

Hear Hills' persuasive piece for yourself at:
http://www.theworld.org/2010/02/26/more-live-coverage-of-olympics-outside-us/

In a related manner, the New York Times' Olympics Rings blog reports late this afternoon that Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl is asking many of the same reasonable questions that Carol Hills raises in her radio piece about consumer accessability:
Senator Asks NBC to Explain Internet Restrictions By Richard Sandomir
http://vancouver2010.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/senator-asks-nbc-to-explain-internet-restrictions/

On the odd chance that you don't already know, Herb Kohl is the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks and -yes- is part of the Kohl family for whom Kohl's department store is named.
(He was the company president for most of the Seventies.)

Not surprisingly, he is and has been the wealthiest person in the entire U.S. Congress since first getting elected to the Senate in 1988, where he succeeded Senator William Proxmire, a true original whom we could use dozens of clones of today to make things right.

Sen. Kohl is the Chairman of a Judiciary subcommittee where his Midwestern values and moderate notions are a real plus: Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights.
http://judiciary.senate.gov/about/subcommittees/antitrust.cfm

Later in her blog posting, Lacey Rose drops the nugget which caused me to take a few minutes today to write about a subject that I've been talking about for years with my media friends up in the D.C. area, especially my African-American reporter friends, so many of whom used to go with me to Baltimore for Oriole games via the MARC Baseball Train from D.C.'s Union Station, which deposited us right next to Camden Yards.

While older women are watching the Winter Olympics in numbers that Madison Avenue doesn't quite know what to do with, "Viewership among both Hispanic and African-American populations is 74% below the national average."

See Lacey Rose's entire post here:
Olympic TV Ratings: Bigger? Yes. Better? Maybe Not.
February 25, 2010
http://blogs.forbes.com/bizblog/2010/02/25/olympic-tv-ratings-bigger-yes-better-maybe-not/

I originally meant to post the informative daily video I receive straight from the Vancouver organizers from the very beginning of the Games but... miuex tard que jamais:



Live Olympic results are at: http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-schedule-results/

New York Times Olympics Rings blog, http://vancouver2010.blogs.nytimes.com/

A terrific Swedish TV program we could use more of over here: "Jag ska bli stjärna"; The state of Girls sports in South Florida and the abysmal media coverage it receives; Zara Larsson

Below, Zara Larsson singing A Moment Like This.from Sweden's TV4 daily morning show "After Ten," from Nov. 26th, 2009.

Zara is the eleven-year old winner of last year's nationally televised Talang 2008 contest, and is one of the handful of very talented kids profiled on TV4's very compelling Tuesday night
documentary series, Jag ska bli stjärna, (I'll be a star). 



You can see the most recent episode, 5 of 6, about 44 minutes long, by clicking below, as long as you do so before Tuesday afternoon our time, since a new episode airs tomorrow night in Sweden, and will be uploaded to their website some time
thereafter.
http://www.tv4play.se/aktualitet/jag_ska_bli_stjarna

Here, in a clip from last Tuesday's episode, Zara sings the Swedish national anthem at
a race track, and naturally, everyone's a critic!

Meanwhile, back home, Laila Bagge helps Zara get prepared to record a demo CD
and sets the wheels in motion for Zara to go to Hollywood.

But not before preparing here to answer basic questions, en engelsk, like, "Who are your musical influences?"


I think it'd be great to see a show as savvy, serious and well-produced as this made in the U.S., but you just know that given the current entertainment climate, rather than make a smart,
knowing documentary series, they'd intentionally add a lot of unlikable kids into the mix instead, just to add some spice and melodrama.

That's the current casting method at reality shows like Fox-TV's American Idol and MTV's
Real World, and a little often, lately, with CBS-TV's Survivor.

(I've watched just about every single episode of Survivor since the show first aired, but after watching this past season's premiere in September, my gut-sense was that the cast seemed a little TOO predictable and orchestrated. Nej tak!)

Me, I like to watch the inherent sociology of what happens to people are suddenly thrown together and forced to deal with strangers, with whom they suddenly will have to depend upon to an extent.

That's one of the principal reasons why CBS-TV's The Amazing Race is so great. 
That show is one I never miss, precisely because it's hard to orchestrate things well enough in advance to get teams to act a certain way.

Frankly, that's why out of all the myriad reality shows, a celebrity season of it would prove quite interesting and appealing ratings-wise, as long as you have teams that mix smart and
resourceful people from different milieus competing against each other: academia, High-Tech, fashion, sports, Film, TV, high culture, et al.


That would be very compelling TV with the right people in place.

One of the things that I personally find so appealing and compelling about Jag ska bli stjärna is that you literally have no inkling of what's going to happen to the kids and their parents before it actually does.
The "real" of reality TV!

Thus, it seems fresher and more genuine than anything like the pre-programmed reality shows
here in the U.S., where the show runners seem unwilling to trust the intelligence of viewers
to figure things out on their own.

I have a great sense of humor but I suspect that's one of the many reasons why I've NEVER watched a moment of Fox-TV's American Idol, except for the spill-over at the top of the hour when I flip over to watch House.

To me, it seems pre-programmed to a fair-thee-well to get a particular narrative and construct.

I want competitions to be about what the subject at hand is -not people trying to become famous for 'Fifteen Minutes'- and want the final results to correspond to something
involving talent, ability or effort.

I guess I'm just Old School that way. But then I've been a Turner Classic Movies fan from Day One, too.

Olivia Welin från Höllviken GIF.
.
Thirteen-year old soccer player Olivia Welin and her family and teammates, who were
filmed since last January, remind me a lot, in a positive way, of a lot of the families with
daughters I saw for many years in my sister's part of western Howard County, Maryland,
and how they focus some of the their time and energies on their daughters playing sports,
especially field hockey, lacrosse and soccer.

The parents are VERY committed, especially the mothers, as is the case with Olivia'smother on the show, as well as my sister, who is a coach for field hockey and soccer,
just like my brother-in-law in Maryland is.

All of my three nieces played field hockey and two have already started in the Maryland State High School Championship game for their team, with one now playing in college.
They all played soccer, too, of course, and one -the youngest- does field hockey, soccer and lacrosse over the course of a year.
I'll be writing on the topic of Girls sports in more detail in the future, but to me, comparing how they're organized in the greater Northern Virginia/ DC/Baltimore area, is that Girls sports are MUCH better-supported, valued and attended up there compared to the rampant apathy
of South Florida.

I have my suspicions on why that's the case, but it starts with the mothers down here, too, who, sadly, far too often, live in self-absorbed condo cocoons, and who clearly aren't willing to spend
the time and energy with their daughters they should.

That time means occasionally having to be a referee or a coach or raising
money for trips if it's a Travel Squad.

And do I even have to mention how atrocious South Florida's sports media is in covering Girl's high school or Women's college sports in a serious and non-condescending way?

With all the technological resources they have now, they've stood still and are running-in-place.
It's really, really embarrassing.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, the world has evolved while South Florida's sleepwalking media watches the grass grow...
http://www.expressen.se/sport/sanktan

The media coverage was MUCH better in the late 1970's, especially at the Herald, which I know from personal experience because of...
Well, I'll explain more in the future, but suffice to say for now that it has to do with North Miami Beach High School Girls Gymnastics and Hialeah Miami Lakes High School girls Soccer.

One more important point, without getting into lots of minute detail.
In watching the previous shows as I have, you can see after watching Olivia Welin'sself-evident talent, ability and dedication to listening to her coach and getting better, why Sweden, not England or some other well-known South American soccer countries -besides Brazil- are among the top Women's National Soccer teams in the world, EVERY YEAR.
Like the Dutch in field hockey!

That's why all the elite NCAA field hockey programs have Dutch players: UVA, Maryland, Wake Forest...

Below, Olivia's first day as a referee



Olivia has some difficult decisions to make



See also:http://www.tv4.se/jag-ska-bli-stj%C3%A4rna/artiklar/olivia-welin-4fbf872404bf72519400275c

More about Olivia:
http://www.tv4.se/jag-ska-bli-stj%C3%A4rna/artiklar/l%C3%A4s-hela-chatten-om-fotboll-med-olivia-4fbf8bd104bf725194002f91

http://www.expressen.se/Sport/sanktan/skane/1.1799454/jag-ska-bli-stjarna

Latest fey TV genius move "Sounds like slang for syphilis"

James Hibberd's The Live Feed -"Your daily jolt of TV industry buzz"- has long been one of my favorite entertainment websites to read, and Wednesday was no exception.

I caught up with James and read his take from Monday regarding the death-spiral move made by the top genius suit at NBC Universal Cable named Bonnie Hammer, who, to the dismay of actual viewers of The Sci-Fi Channel -which sometimes includes me- has decided to further destroy what little credibility remains there by changing its moniker to Syfy.

Really.

The first thing I thought of?

Sounds like a newly created category on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, MBTI, of which I'm an ENFP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENFP

Ridicule hardly begins to describe what happens to TV exec Bonnie Hammer in the forums.

It's sort of like watching everyone taking swing-for-the-fences swipes at The Herald at various blog sites and their own forums.

Sometimes, people really hit the sweet spot and connect!

See Viewers ridicule Sci Fi's name change NBC at

http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/03/viewers-bash-sci-fis-name-change.html

See The Hollywood Reporter at http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/index.jsp