Monday Night Football and cable's slide

[JW]

From the Chief:

https://www.primetimer.com/barnhart/mnf

[PGage]

I have a few nits to pick with AB here (e.g. Nance/Romo is not the best duo, Michaels is not the best announcer in history, and did not strictly speaking replace Cosell, both because there was I think two seasons between them, and because Cosell of course was not a play by play guy), but overall totally agree with him. ESPN has done its best to degrade MNF, both by overcharging for itself and under investing in the show. ESPN’s culture hates when any announcer becomes as important as its content, such that MNF is indistinguishable from some low-tier mid-December college bowl game.

Many years ago now there was a list member, I think a woman (the memory fades)  who I had a longish argument with about sports on broadcast TV. She was angry that her shows were preempted by sports, especially during postseasons, and wanted all sports to be moved to cable. I was very much opposed, arguing that many households did not have access to cable (at the time true, not sure how much so today) and that various government subsidies and supports for big time sports justified making it available on the public airways. Over the years though, the NBA moved almost all its national and postseason games to cable, and MLB moved a big portion of theirs, and MNF went to ESPN, and in my mind I conceded the point to my interlocutor. If MNF moves back to ABC it may signal that my concession was premature. MLB and NBA ratings are not nearly as high as the NFL of course, but the continued erosion of broadcast market share may mean that the networks would prefer a reliable if relatively small sports rating to the gamble of developing new programming that could easily have cratered ratings.

On Mon, 28 Dec 2020 at 1:46 AM JW <redb...@gmail.com> wrote:

From the Chief:

https://www.primetimer.com/barnhart/mnf

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKSNnOH-UT9OFzt8qMiWd2Db4NLRBiPB-HUE0%2B4p7Ji%3DpChK7Q%40mail.gmail.com.

--

Sent from Gmail Mobile

[Doug Eastick]

I do agree that Sunday night is a better, or more Event broadcast than Mondays now. And adding kornacki was nice too.

On the Canadian side, NFL is largely on TSN with some some games (Sunday afternoon mostly) OTA on CTV.  (TSN owned by CTV/bell).

CFL, I believe, is totally on TSN cable. Some other Canadian can correct me if the Grey Cup goes to CTV.

And then there have been books written on the NHL Canadian rights being bought by Rogers/Sportsnet .. a bit of a flop, buti think they have evolved. I'm not much of an NHL fan.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYJRUdw4gh9PCTx8BY%3DBzLSaStS7XwQQNw13Uut3TXAHMQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Kevin M.]

My brother was lamenting the fact he could not watch an NFL game over the weekend because it was on a streaming service. Alas, at the house where I was, I was lamenting that they DID have that streaming service, as I was forced to watch the feetsballs.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAK5Q1Box7SBPfQ6-5-oTAcj_vPLrvZsjFcON1Zu5mBFUpwr4jg%40mail.gmail.com.

--

Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Tom Wolper]

On Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 11:45 AM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

Many years ago now there was a list member, I think a woman (the memory fades)  who I had a longish argument with about sports on broadcast TV. She was angry that her shows were preempted by sports, especially during postseasons, and wanted all sports to be moved to cable. I was very much opposed, arguing that many households did not have access to cable (at the time true, not sure how much so today) and that various government subsidies and supports for big time sports justified making it available on the public airways. Over the years though, the NBA moved almost all its national and postseason games to cable, and MLB moved a big portion of theirs, and MNF went to ESPN, and in my mind I conceded the point to my interlocutor. If MNF moves back to ABC it may signal that my concession was premature. MLB and NBA ratings are not nearly as high as the NFL of course, but the continued erosion of broadcast market share may mean that the networks would prefer a reliable if relatively small sports rating to the gamble of developing new programming that could easily have cratered ratings.

My recollection is that Tom Heald was the advocate for shifting all sports to cable. He argued for this policy for his convenience rather than any principle.

In the current DVR/streaming era, live sports and awards shows are the only shows that reliably draw live viewers. I'm a late adopter to TV technologies due to a mix of financial pressures and being content with what I've got and it's only relatively recently that I got a DVR. Yet I have stopped watching non-sports programming in real time. Since young adults don't have my inertia (they don't know what non-DVR TV is) watching live TV may be alien to them and shifting sports to cable might not mean increased ratings for regular programs.

[Sean Healy]

On 2020-12-28 11:51 a.m., Doug Eastick wrote:
>
> CFL, I believe, is totally on TSN cable. Some other Canadian can
> correct me if the Grey Cup goes to CTV.

I can attest there's been no CFL over-the-air for years now.  The Grey
Cup doesn't go to CTV.

It could easily be argued they've lost a generation of cable cutters as
a result, though I'm sure they find alternate ways if they really want
to watch.

[John Edwards]

The CFL has been exclusively on cable since 2008 (CBC's contract ended in 2007). Cable's penetration has always been high in Canada, so they lost some households with that, but I'm not sure how many.

As for the NFL games on CTV, I'm under the impression that they go there in part so that CTV can take advantage of the simultaneous substitution rules (whereby cable companies have to replace the American station's feed with the Canadian one when they are airing the same program at the same time). That phenomenon during the Super Bowl has been a particular bone of contention in Canada.

John

 

--

John Edwards
"You can insure against the weather, but you can't insure against incompetence, can you?" - Phil Tufnell