Friday, October 01, 1999
SPORTS ON TV-RADIO
Reds, FSNO work together to air tonight's game
BY JOHN FAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Credit John Allen for giving a little and Fox Sports Net Ohio for scrambling a lot to get tonight's Reds-Milwaukee Brewers game on FSNO.
“It was a joint effort,” FSNO General Manager Steve Liverani said. “The Reds were willing to eat some of the expense, and we picked up the production costs.
“We got together and worked it out to put the fans first,” Liverani said.
The problem with adding a game at the last minute is that it's difficult to sell advertising on such short notice.
“People asked why the Mon day afternoon (Sept.27) game wasn't on,” Liverani said. “First of all, Monday afternoon is not an ideal time to put a game on. It's also tough to sell the ads.”
The Reds, of course, have become a hot item. Final numbers on Tuesday's Reds game with the Houston Astros show that it drew a household rating of 12.1, the highest ever for a Reds game on Fox Sports Net.
“We didn't just break it,” Liverani said. “We shattered it. It was Bob Beamon's long-jump record.”
The previous record was a 7.5 for a Cleveland game in July.
LANCE AND PETE: WBOB's Lance McAlister will have Pete Rose in the studio for an interview at 11a.m. today. That means Rose will be going head to head with Wildman Walker's show on WCKY-AM (1360 HOMER), where Rose's name comes up occasionally.
NO 19: Three of the four local television stations with newscasts were in Houston for the Reds series. Only Channel 19 skipped the trip.
WLW-AM (700) did SportsTalk live from the Astrodome. Andy Furman and Bill “Seg” Dennison talked to almost every Red who has swung a bat or thrown a ball this year.
BROO OUT: Former Channel 12 anchor Ken Broo's contract with WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C., was not renewed. Broo also served as radio voice of the Bengals.
NO LAP: Radio analyst Dave Lapham will miss the Bengals' game with the St.Louis Rams Sunday. Lapham is working the Carolina game at Washington for Fox Sports.
Bruce Kozerski will fill in here.
It's the second of five games Lapham will do for Fox. His contract with WBOB-AM (1160) allows him to skip four games. He will do one Fox game the Bengals' bye week.
“I'm pumped to get to see an offense that really moves the ball,” Lapham said. “Washington is No.1 in passing, running, everything.”
MORE BENGALS: Speaking of former Bengals play-by-play men, WBOB contacted Paul Keels, who did the games before WLW lost the rights to BOB.
Current play-by-play man Pete Arbogast is in the final year of his contract with BOB.
Keels, who is doing Ohio State football and basketball, was not interested. His contract runs through 2002.
John Fay covers TV/radio sports for The Enquirer. He can be reached at 768-8445
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