Time Warner Cable Tv Listings

Once heralded for having the sharpest antennae in commissionerdom, David Stern has morphed into The Cable Guy. Divulging the NBA's 2002-08 TV pact--starring Disney's ESPNs, co-starring AOL Time Warner and TNT, street value $4.6 bill--he sounded as wired as Jim Carrey. Stern did negotiate a 25 percent increase in rights fees, despite a 35 percent decline in ratings from the 1997-98 season to 2000-01 and a bad economy. So Stern is entitled to rejoice: "How can one little insulated wire bring so much happiness?" (Oops; my bad; it was Homer who actually said that, back in Year 2 of The Simpsons, but you get the idea.) How, indeed?

This corporate deal is as complex and confusing as l'affaire Enron. For Disney's $2.4 billion, ESPN/ESPN2 gets games on Wednesdays and Fridays, plus playoffs and the draft; ABC will show 15 regular-season games and The Finals. AOL's $2.2 billion buys unopposed Thursday doubleheaders on TNT, playoffs, the All-Star Game--and 50 percent of the proposed channel supplanting CNN/SI, which is to show four more games weekly. Prepare to check thy local listings.

Winners: ESPN (the first channel to own NFL/MLB/ NHL/NBA rights simultaneously), ADD-challenged viewers (ESPN2's Tuesday coverage promises NCAA Tournament-style cut-ins across the league), Brent Musburger (an opportunity to reprise his golden-age play-by-play), TNT (retains prestige programming), Charles Barkley (his fat butt stays in the studio) and Disney (more cross-promotion fodder).

Losers: Marv Albert (ABC can't say no to Al Michaels at The Finals); Ahmad Rashad (NBA Inside Stuff is sliding down the food chain to ABC Family); NHL on ESPN (evicted from Wednesdays); TBS (NBA-free for the first time in 18 years); John Tesh (no more royalties from his NBA on NBC theme) and NBC Sports (it has surrendered the NFL, MLB, now the NBA. XBA, anyone?).

The Peacock's molting after 11 seasons as NBA torchbearer is big, big, big. Never before has cable outbid a network; noting operators pay ESPN $1.70 monthly per subscriber, NBC's Dick Ebersol suggests networks will be priced out of big-league sports evermore. Viewing habits will be altered, because ABC will show half as many games on weekends, and the shift to sports-specific cable channels means less exposure to mainstream audiences.

Finally, to max out cable dollars, the number of TV exposures will soar. Next season's projected total of 336 games doubles the current schedule. "There is no such thing as oversaturation," insists Stern. But adding inventory in a depressed market flaunts the rules of free enterprise: If sauerkraut consumption falls, do you throw more sauerkraut at the customer?

"This represents a fundamental change in philosophy," Stern concedes. When he took command 20 years ago, pre-cable, he cut back on TV games. The NBA boomed.

FRITZ QUINDT fquindt@sportingnews.com

COPYRIGHT 2002 Sporting News Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group

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