Sunday, October 29, 2000
Sports on TV-Radio
WXIX still trying to fill UC job
By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer
You may have noticed that no one has been named to one of the plum television play-by-play jobs in town. Tipoff for the University of Cincinnati's basketball season is a month away, and Channel 19 still hasn't hired a replacement for Dan Hoard on its broadcasts.
Hoard moved over to radio play-by-play on WLW-AM (700).
Channel 19 hopes to have the search wrapped up this week.
“We're evaluating the two finalists now,” said David Ashbrock, who produces and directs the telecasts.
Channel 19 twice thought it had its man.
First, Fox star Thom Brennaman was offered the gig. Brennaman, who did UC's games for seven seasons before Hoard took over, could not work it into his schedule.
Then, Bob Carpenter was offered the job. Carpenter does baseball play-by-play on the St. Louis Cardinals TV network and a lot of basketball work for ESPN. In fact, he did a half-dozen UC games last year.
But he decided doing 13 additional games for Channel 19 would be too much.
“He's got something like 46 games for ESPN,” Ashbrock said. “He didn't want to be away from his family any more.”
Ashbrock talked to Marty Brennaman about the job, but Brennaman wasn't interested.
Whoever takes the job will work with Anthony Buford, who was Hoard's partner the last three seasons.
BOB ALUMS: I get a lot of inquiries about what former WBOB-AM (1160) hosts Tim Lewis and Paul Sturgeon are doing. The answer: Still looking.
“It's tough in this town,” Lewis said. “I've tried at Clear Channel, but they don't have a place for me. I want to stay in town. My wife (Rhonda) is from here. My in-laws would kill me if I left.”
I was unable to reach Sturgeon, but he's in the same situation locally.
Clear Channel should be called All Channel because it pretty much controls all sports radio in this town.
Seems to me WCKY-AM (1360) could use another body or two. The Sports Animal continues to run those weak Sports Attacks that come out of San Diego. The only connection the guys doing them have to Cincinnati is a link to the Enquirer Web site.
If you put Sturgeon in Wildman Walker's talk spot and moved Wildman to updates, the station would be immeasurably better.
BRACKET TIME: Ohio News Network will do an NCAA Tournament-type show announcing the pairing for the Ohio High School Athletic Association football playoffs. The show airs today at noon.
This a good time to have ONN, which will air the Division I semifinals and finals. ONN is available to Time Warner digital subscribers.
ON COREY: Tom Jackson's sit-down interview with Corey Dillon will air on ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown, which runs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. today.
PROPS ALL AROUND: If you're a fan of high school football, you live in the right town. The four local TV stations all did a great job on Friday nights again this year. You get great video, all the scores and a lot of flavor of the games.
John Fay covers radio/TV sports for The Enquirer. He can be reached at (513) 768-8445.
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