It's official: WKYC/3 has nabbed the 2006 pre-season game rights to Cleveland Browns football, and will air other Browns-themed local programming. The pact is for one year.And the deal had to happen quickly. The local NBC affiliate will be carrying the first pre-season game next Thursday, August 10th against the Philadelphia Eagles.
WKYC will also air pre-game and post-game shows for each of the pre-season games it carries this year, as well as a regular Sunday morning pre-game show during the regular season.
"The Point After" will air Monday nights at 7 during the season, and starting September 10th, a local Browns show will air on WKYC after NBC's Sunday Night Football.
And in their announcement, the Browns also confirmed the pre-season broadcast team for the 2006 games:
* Sam Rosen returns to the play-by-play role this year, after taking over that position for the second pre-season game last year.
* As he announced himself, popular former Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar will be a regular analyst this pre-season.
* And another member of the 2005 Browns pre-season TV team, former receiver Brian Brennan, will round out the trio in the 2006 TV booth...
15 comments:
While I thought the Browns would go to 5, I can see why they went to 3.
WKYC already had a good team of analysts on staff (including both members of the radio team, a popular former coach, and the team's main newspaper beat writer).
Ch. 3 had been the Browns home station for many years prior, so this is merely a case of getting back on the bike, not starting from scratch.
Finally, WKYC has done a good job with the Indians production wise, so doing the same for football should'nt be a problem.
I do agree with the first post. But how does this effect the contract with surrounding markets to air the games? I assume they will air in Eire,Youngstown,and Columbus but who will air them. In Youngstown, WYTV was scheduled to air them but WYFX/WKBN did air the WKYC games from 1999 to 2004 and for about two years the Monday coaches show and Sunday nite shoiw as well. They also carry the WKYC produced Indians games as well. Can WKYC change who carries the preseason games? Does both FSN Ohio and WKYC get to carry non preseason football games or is it just FSN Ohio. I thought all non preseason games were going to be on FSN but the press realese says that they are airing other programming? In addition ch 19 is doing a preseason and post season show. How can this all be?
How in the hell have heads not rolled at WOIO over this? We know Raycom upper management is angry. We know nothing else WOIO or WUAB is doing is making a dent in the ratings. Time to try something else? Or to take a lead from CBS in Detroit, mired on a forgotten UHF outpost high on the deal, and forget about doing news (or, to be especially unkind, "news") entirely?
Thank God the Browns are on a channel that won't try to have Bob Golic do play-by-play again.
Good question about the outer markets. We'll try to find out. My guess is that the those outlets won't change due to the switch to WKYC.
FSN Ohio's contract does not include the pre-season games, at least live. They could theoretically carry repeat broadcasts of the WKYC game broadcasts, but that'd have to be announced. As we've said before, the NFL does not allow non-OTA stations to be the primary carrier for these games.
Channel 19 can continue to do any Browns-related theme programming they want, just as WEWS and other stations can. They just don't have the official stamp of team approval anymore. There may be some restrictions as to what the shows can be called, what footage they use, etc.. but anyone can do a "football show".
-OMW
The out of market stations (Youngstown, etc.) that air the pre-season games will not be affected.
They would have carried the games regardless, it was just a matter of finding a home station to originate the telecast.
The topic of WOIO not doing news has come up before on this blog. The only reason WWJ doesn't do news is that's the one market where CBS knows firsthand how difficult it is to do news on UHF without subcontracting it out. (Which no longer makes any sense with cable, and will make less sense when everything is on digital and mostly UHF in two years. But old habits die hard, consumers and station owners alike.) They still expect it of everyone else in top markets though.
The only other market where CBS owns a UHF CBS station is Austin, TX... where *everyone* except Fox is on UHF.
When Viacom merged with CBS, struggling, newsless WWJ became co-owned with UPN station WKBD, which did fairly well and produced its own newscasts, which were rather successful. Did they move CBS to the longer-established and better-off WKBD? No. Instead, the f'in UPN station became the senior player in the duopoly with the CBS station, producing the newscasts for the CBS station (rather than the other way around like, oh, I don't know, EVERY OTHER ONE-STATION-PRODUCES-NEWS-FOR-ANOTHER ARRANGEMENT IN THE COUNTRY INVOLVING UPN/WB/CW/MYNET), and when those failed, WKBD shut down its news entirely and had WXYZ start producing its news. Now that's over too, and now *neither* station has any news (WKBD is now moving to the CW).
I know I'm veering away from Ohio and going off on a rant here, but does anyone know why CBS didn't move to WKBD once the merger came and stick WWJ with UPN, instead of bringing down WKBD with it? I can see why WKBD would decline when New World robbed CBS of long-running affiliate WJBK, if only because other stations did too, but once it's all part of the same family was there anything that could have possibly kept it from happening?
Okay, off-topic rant over.
CBS spent alot of money upgrading WWJ-TV signal and tower making it one of the most powerful stations in Michigan. That and the fact people in Detroit had gotten used to CBS on 62 and UPN on 50. But you are 100% correct and when it comes to Detroit and Pittsburgh they can be compaired to Cleveland so it fits I think.
Obviously WKYC is wasting no time--I saw the first Browns' promo this evening in between My Name is Earl and The Office.
hmmm... curious how Sportstime Ohio happens to have an agreement with WKYC and now the Browns make an agreement with WKYC. Seems a bit fishy to me... Of course they couldn't make any official announcement about STO, but my guess is that the Dolans are behind this and the Browns are simply using that 9-1-1 call as an excuse.
You forget one thing - STO is not the official cable outlet of the team, FSN Ohio is.
Though STO doesn't seem to have many problems doing its "Training Camp Daily" show from Berea, and it's using Browns radio voice/WKYC sports director/STO jack-of-all-trades Jim Donovan on that show...
-OMW
STO's "Training Camp Daily" show is an independently produced show.
Any and all stations can do all the Browns themed shows they want.
It's just the "Official Home(s)" of the Browns can actually use the Browns name in the titles of these shows.
In other words, it (supposedly) puts some extra luster to a show to have the Browns' seal of approval.
I kind of can't wait for WOIO's "Tailgate 19" Sunday pre-game show to see the vile that will be spewed out.
It's a train wreck kind of thing.
Yeah, I know that...in fact, I allude to it in a comment a couple of comments up from there.
By "doesn't seem to have many problems", I was thinking about things like access to the training camp, access to players, etc.
The list of rules is longer this year (see our earlier report on that). But the team doesn't seem to be impeding anyone - even 19 - from setting up live shots and shows from there...there are just no "props" allowed, etc.
Even FSN Ohio's now-officially sanctioned show... the set where Michael Reghi is is likely in Independence, not Berea.
And yes, 19's coverage will be interesting to watch. Our guess? A lot of Golic and Dixon...
-OMW
Would Sharon Reed count as a prop?
You mean Bob Golic won't be doing play by play this year? I was so looking forward to it too!
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