Sunday, June 25, 2000
SPORTS ON TV-RADIO
Fox Sports turns focus to Ohio
By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer
When Steve Liverani starts talking about the new anchor on Fox Sports Net's soon-to-be-launched Regional Sports Report, he uses the word “Ohio” about a half-dozen times.
“That was our first priority,” said Liverani, FSN's general manager for Ohio. “This is something that's never been done — a half-sports, half-news show on Ohio. We wanted someone familiar with Ohio sports. We wanted veteran people with Ohio backgrounds to produce, report and gather news for the show. That was our goal.”
And Dan DeCrow is their man.
DeCrow has spent three years as a reporter/anchor at WNWO-TV in Toledo. Before that, DeCrow was a sports videographer for WKEF-TV in Dayton for five years.
DeCrow is a native of Salem, Ohio, and a graduate of Ohio University.
The regional show will originate from Chicago, so Liverani wants to emphasize that it will be an Ohio show done by Ohio people. The reason it's coming from Chicago is FSN has a hub there where several regional shows will be produced.
FSN will have a reporter, a producer and a shooter based in Cincinnati. It also will rely on a network of stringers.
But DeCrow is the key. He's going to get the majority of the face time. If FSN had brought him in from, say, Florida, he would have spent a couple months just learning the state of Ohio, which would be difficult when you're based in Chicago.
I saw a tape of DeCrow's sportscast from the Saturday the Reds played the Indians in Cleveland. He did a nice job, nothing flashy. That's good. The sports anchor world is overpopulated with loud-talking, SportsCenter wanna-bes.
Fox Sport Net will launch Regional Sports Report for Ohio July 31. The half-hour show will air at 11p.m.
VOICE OF UC: Hiring Dan Hoard to do play-by-play on University of Cincinnati football and basketball games was an easy decision for WLW-AM (700) once Hoard made it known he was willing to switch from TV to radio.
“We were lucky to get someone who had been involved with UC,” said Darryl Parks, operations director at WLW. “He's also known in the community. It will be a great fit.”
Hoard, who did UC games on Channel 19 for five years, is a big upgrade over George Von Benko. Hoard works hard at his craft. He is as well-prepared as any play-by-play guy you'll hear.
The hitch to hiring him was Clear Channel and WXIX-TV had to work things out. Hoard will remain at 19 as the weekend sports anchor. Thom Brennaman's interest in returning to do the games on 19 eased the station's concern.
WLW and UC are still trying to decide who will be the analyst on the football broadcasts. It would be a huge mistake not to bring back Jim Kelly.
Kelly, who worked with Von Benko and Paul Keels on UC games, knows the game, does his homework and makes astute observations.
HOMER UPDATE: WBOB-AM (1160) talkers Lance McAlister and The Two Angry Guys (Tom Gamble and Richard Skinner) are still being courted by WCKY-AM (1360) to host shows on the station.
“We wanted to flush out things on the Bengals broadcasts,” Parks said, “before we started worrying about HOMER.”
ON MILLER: Hiring Dennis Miller accomplished at least one thing: It got people talking about Monday Night Football in June. Will it work?
Miller is talented and extremely funny. The big question is: Will Joe Six Pack get his references to obscure pop culture? He's also going to have to tone things down. The average Miller rant lasts longer than most NFL scoring drives.
But I'm sure people will tune in out of pure curiosity.
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