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ESPN To Cut Back Baseball/Hockey (More Original Programming,Less Sports)
Variety ^ | 6-22-05 | John Dempsey

Posted on 06/22/2005 9:55:22 AM PDT by My Favorite Headache

ESPN gets less sports-centered Cabler to broaden its field with more series, telepix

By JOHN DEMPSEY

Less hockey and baseball. More original movies and series. That's one big equation on the mind of Mark Shapiro, executive VP of programming and production for ESPN, who's gung ho about broadening the audience for ESPN by reaching beyond the stereotypical potbellied sports nut, stretched out in his undershirt on a Barcalounger with a can of beer in one hand and a remote in the other.

ESPN and ESPN2 aimed the National Hockey League games it carried from 1999 through 2004 squarely at this viewer, but Shapiro says the NHL's ratings had fallen to such a depressed state by the 2003-04 season (a labor dispute obliterated the 2004-05 schedule) that he won't pay cash license fees anymore.

And Shapiro is negotiating a new contract with Major League Baseball but says, "I'm not interested in carrying five games a week unless I get full network exclusivity," a concession baseball seems unwilling to grant except for the traditional ESPN game of the week on Sunday night.

And that's where scripted programming comes in. Shapiro says one of the reasons ESPN's scripted series about Las Vegas poker players "Tilt" failed to find an audience earlier this year is that the only free night not saturated with live sports commitments was Thursday, where, at 9 p.m., the show had to go up against such strong series as "CSI" on CBS, "Will & Grace" on NBC and "Extreme Makeover" on ABC. Against those odds, "Tilt" never really had a chance.

By contrast, ESPN's other scripted series "Playmakers," a warts-and-all look at the members of a fictional pro-football team, fared much better with audiences in 2003's late summer and fall because the network was able to carve out a weekly primetime slot on Tuesday, where the competition was not so fierce.

Despite solid ratings, "Playmakers" got a reluctant cancellation notice after its first 13-episode season, falling victim to the hostility of the National Football League, most of whose owners hated the portrayal of some athletes as drug users, wife beaters and other unsavory types.

The mistakes ESPN made in shepherding "Playmakers" and "Tilt" onto the schedule have only reinforced Shapiro's goal of coming up with one or two hit series in the next few years and with at least four highly exploitable original movies a year, starting in 2006.

The man who created "Playmakers," John Eisendrath, is working on an untitled drama pilot set in the world of boxing, which is slated as ESPN's next series.

Shapiro says he has 30 movie projects in the works, with two in production: "Four Minutes," a docudrama about Roger Bannister, the first athlete to run the four-minute mile, and "The Code Breakers," a script based on the 1951 West Point scandal in which the school expelled 83 Army cadets, including most of the football team, for cheating.

Sports-media consultant Kevin O'Malley applauds Shapiro's push to get ESPN into scripted movies and series.

"These shows are already getting more women and younger men to watch the network," O'Malley says.

Getting different kinds of people to watch ESPN, says Neal Pilson, a sports consultant and former president of CBS Sports, will help to pump up the network's advertising revenues.

Kagan Research says ESPN already harvests more ad revenues than any other cable network, projecting a record $869.2 million in 2005, a 9% gain over those of last year.

ESPN should look at the example of MTV, says David Carter, a principal with the Los Angeles-based Sports Business Group.

"MTV became an integral part of the pop culture," he says, "by morphing from a musicvideo network to a channel carrying a wide range of programming."

However, Mike Trager, former head of Clear Channel Entertainment, says ESPN "has to walk a fine line between reaching out for new viewers and alienating its core audience."

Or, as another sports analyst puts it: "Women may watch an episode of one of the series, but that doesn't mean they're going to abandon Lifetime to become devotees of the NFL and the NBA on ESPN."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bowling; curling; espn; fespn; lame; lawndarts; sellout
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To: My Favorite Headache

One of the Fox Sports Channels had a darts tournament on the other night. Riveting television, absolultely riveting.


41 posted on 06/22/2005 10:35:05 AM PDT by Biblebelter
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To: John W

ESPN is on in many bars. If the bars stop showing ESPN because they are not showing sports I can see some of that beer money going to FOX Sports Net.


42 posted on 06/22/2005 10:36:43 AM PDT by pepperhead (Kennedy's float, Mary Jo's don't!)
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To: pepperhead

Compared to "Chasing Farrah" and "Top ten Classic Gay Characters" it is. That's how bad it's getting.


43 posted on 06/22/2005 10:36:49 AM PDT by pollyannaish
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To: over3Owithabrain
No kidding - ESPN has become just another leftist repository.

Cold Pizza is a leftist playground.

44 posted on 06/22/2005 10:37:40 AM PDT by pepperhead (Kennedy's float, Mary Jo's don't!)
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To: My Favorite Headache
If they are going to use MTV as a model to follow by I might as well just skip ESPN forever from now on.

I was thinking more like the Discovery Channel, which has gone from science, nature, history, and culture, to hotrods, choppers, and bounty hunters, 24/7.

45 posted on 06/22/2005 10:38:16 AM PDT by Labyrinthos
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To: over3Owithabrain

In the past couple of weeks on ESPN.com, there was an article talking about how female athletes are often "empowered" by their fathers (anytime I see the word "empowered," my eyes glass over); a couple of articles talking about how idiotic Car Everett is for stating the obvious fact that two men or two women can't make a baby, and he felt homosexuality was wrong; and every second or third article on "Page 2" tries to work in some jab at Bush. They have become pathetic.

I tried to get my sports news from Foxsports.com, but anytime I see an article claiming Tim Duncan is the greatest forward of all time and Scottie "I rode Michael's coattails" Pippen is the ninth best, I have to question their sports knowledge.


46 posted on 06/22/2005 10:41:01 AM PDT by LanPB01
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To: My Favorite Headache

FESPN...


47 posted on 06/22/2005 10:41:33 AM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
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To: Labyrinthos

Yeah what gives with Discovery? Totally whacked out but then again...profits...profits..profits.


48 posted on 06/22/2005 10:42:39 AM PDT by My Favorite Headache ("Scientology is dangerous stuff,it's like forming a religion based around Johnny Quest and Haji.")
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To: My Favorite Headache
Oh yeah and the TV Land Awards...quite possibly the gayest thing ever put on TV next to Cop Rock?

I think the gayest thing I've ever seen is the Miniature Golf World Championships on ESPN2. Not suprisingly, most of the contestents were European.

49 posted on 06/22/2005 10:47:13 AM PDT by Texas Federalist (No matter what my work/play ratio is, I am never a dull boy.)
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To: My Favorite Headache

Discovery has losts its focus, A & E is tetering, and the History Channel is on shakey ground.


50 posted on 06/22/2005 10:48:49 AM PDT by Labyrinthos
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To: My Favorite Headache
Then I guess you can't wait for September 6...

Drum Corps International (DCI), the world leader in producing and sanctioning touring marching music competitions, today announced that its dynamic and award-winning World Championships television program will be broadcast on ESPN2 this fall. This is the first prime-time broadcast of the program on commercial television, and it will be available to more than 88 million households.


51 posted on 06/22/2005 10:50:09 AM PDT by Ulysses ("Most of us go through life thinking we're Superman. Superman goes through life being Clark Kent!")
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To: Ulysses

I guess if a spelling be can be consider sports so can a marching band. Someone please take the drugs away from the ESPN executives.


52 posted on 06/22/2005 10:52:12 AM PDT by pepperhead (Kennedy's float, Mary Jo's don't!)
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To: Ulysses

That is awesome actually.DCI is the best of the best. Thanks for the tip!


53 posted on 06/22/2005 11:16:15 AM PDT by My Favorite Headache ("Scientology is dangerous stuff,it's like forming a religion based around Johnny Quest and Haji.")
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To: dfwgator
How about when CMT or "Country Music Television" did a show "Controversy:The Passion of the Christ". Sure doesn't sound country to me!
54 posted on 06/22/2005 11:45:20 AM PDT by Sybeck1 (chance is the “magic wand to make not only rabbits but entire universes appear out of nothing.”)
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To: My Favorite Headache

ESPN - The all poker channel
The Weather Channel - The all tornado chasers channel
Bravo - The all homosexual channel
MTV - The all soft porn for teens channel
History - The all WWII channel
ABC Family - The all Drew Carey channel
Discovery - The all motorcycle shop channel
Lifetime - The all female victim channel
CNN / MSNBC - The all pretty-white-girl-abduction channels
BET - The all female butt shaking channel

I think I'll read a book tonight.


55 posted on 06/22/2005 12:01:53 PM PDT by kidd
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To: pepperhead

Cool. FOX beats out ABC/Disney yet again!


56 posted on 06/22/2005 12:15:20 PM PDT by ssaftler (Until recently, California had the worst Senators on the hill. Thank you, Turban Durbin!)
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To: My Favorite Headache

I used to turn to ESPN as my first show of the day, to get the scores. No more. They are constanly into "programming" and special features. It's terrible.


57 posted on 06/22/2005 1:03:22 PM PDT by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news)
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To: LS

Original programming sometimes is the knock of death's door with specialty networks.


58 posted on 06/22/2005 4:42:39 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache ("Scientology is dangerous stuff,it's like forming a religion based around Johnny Quest and Haji.")
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To: Labyrinthos

History Channel ROCKS!


59 posted on 06/22/2005 4:44:08 PM PDT by krb (ad hominem arguments are for stupid people)
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To: krb

The problem with the History Channel is it is being slanted ever so PC as each year goes by. By the time 2020 comes around you would think Bill Clinton was Jesus Christ himself when todays Democrats get to write the history books.


60 posted on 06/22/2005 10:20:40 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache ("Scientology is dangerous stuff,it's like forming a religion based around Johnny Quest and Haji.")
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