A bold move by CBS, Turner — or too much too soon?
Eric Deggans |
March 10, 2011 11:54 a.m.
 |
Then blame the Worldwide Leader in Sports.
Because, when it came time to bid for the right to telecast college basketball’s championship tournament, CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus knew there was only one way he could compete with ESPN, which has turned coverage of college hoops into a cottage industry.
He had to go big or go home.
“It’s much better than the alternative, (which was) to have the entire tournament on ESPN,” said McManus of his network’s partnership with Turner Sports, which ditches the regionalization approach of past years – where the country was divided into four sections and games were broadcast according to which teams were of interest in each area.
Instead, CBS and Turner Sports developed a plan to show every one of the 67 games on CBS, TNT, TBS or truTV live and in full for the first time in history — a deal worth nearly $11-billion over 14 years.
In the process, they created a broadcast schedule which turns viewers into the producer/director of their own shows – choosing for themselves when to watch which game on what channel.
It all starts next Tuesday and Wednesday, when truTV presents two first-round games each day, turning the 32-game array of matchups traditionally known as the first round into the second round.
McManus admitted it’s a TV approach which might take some getting used to for fans, who may expect the big broadcast network to shift its focus toward the most interesting contests, as they always have.
“Say (a viewer is) watching CBS and it’s a 25-point game; he’ll say ‘What is CBS doing…sitting on this game?” he said. “In the past, when it would get to 15 points, we would protect the local market and switch to another game. But there’s no switching to another game in this scenario…(The viewer) is going to be playing the role CBS used to play. We’ve empowered the viewer.”
To facilitate that system, each channel will provide information on what’s airing on the other channels, so fans can more easily decide which game they want to watch. On-air announcers will help out, noting where viewers can find more compelling games if the contest they’re watching in the moment is a blowout.
So viewers of next week’s broadcasts will likely see another landmark moment: Announcers on one channel urging viewers to watch a better game on another outlet.
“We’re looking at this as four unique distribution platforms, not (separate) networks,” said David Levy, president of sales for Turner Broadcasting.
Which may be a wonderful resource for viewers – and keep them from grousing about having to track games themselves. But it isn’t necessarily great news for CBS affiliates, which could get stuck airing a game of little interest in their area or a contest so lopsided, fans find something on TNT or TBS more interesting.
Adding insult to that injury, announcers on CBS will be telling viewers to consider switching to another game, which doesn’t hurt the network but will pull local viewers from the broadcast channel and toss them towards cable.
This is the new shape of television, where the needs and priorities of the broadcast networks are increasingly separated from the local affiliate stations which air them.
It’s also a recognition that, for viewers, there is less distinction between cable and broadcast channels – they’re all destinations on the same cable or satellite TV tuner.
“From a business standpoint, what is important to us is the cumulative audience (across all four channels) is maximized,” said McManus. “You can’t buy a commercial on CBS or TNT; you have to buy across all four networks.”
Another goal which may spark a little ire for fans is Turner’s clear focus on using tournament coverage to boost truTV.
Born as the law-focused Court TV in 1991, the newly refashioned truTV has much less brand recognition as an outlet focused on unscripted series. But Levy hoped using the channel to showcase the tournament’s first four games would leverage sports to build name recognition and demand for the outlet on cable systems.
“When TNT first started carrying the NBA and NFL football, that was a huge driver for distribution,” said Levy, adding that truTV is available in 92 million homes, compared to 100 million for TNT and TBS. “The main idea is to…make people understand there’s a great channel there with great programming.”
But truTV’s high-definition channel doesn’t have nearly the carriage its sister networks enjoy, which may snark off hoops fans who can’t see key games with the picture quality they expect, especially at the tournament’s start. (Levy encourages fans to call their cable company and demand truTv in HD, of course.)
Overall, CBS and Turner’s NCAA plans are a bold move in the direction of well-established TV trends.
We’ll all see in the next few weeks whether they’re comfortably ahead of the curve, or so far in front of fans that they’ve left the viewers behind.
Eric Deggans is TV and Media Critic for the St. Petersburg Times and a 1990 graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Village Voice, VIBE magazine, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Sun-Times and many other publications. He also writes a blog on media, The Feed, at blogs.tampabay.com/media.
