On that note, medialand continues
Even more spillover from today's Daily News media column :
-- By the way, next week (Feb. 2) we start the 15th annual Best and Worst of the L.A. sports media with the Top 10/Bottom 5 list of sports-talk show hosts. The four-part series runs through the end of Feburary covering TV sportscaster/personalities, live game analysts and live game play-by-play men. Submit your suggestions ASAP to thomas.hoffarth@dailynews.com ...
--As the newspaper's notebook item covers, Jim Nantz got to see the Jeremy Piven immitation of him on "Saturday Night Live" from a version of the skit posted on YouTube.com. After that one disappeared, this one popped up:
--CBS' Nantz, on what covering this weekend's PGA Tour event at Torrey Pines means as a sort-of season opener (and Tiger Woods' 2007 debut) even though there's been three tournaments played before this, all on the Golf Channel: "I don't want to take away from what the Golf Channel has done already, but San Diego has been given a primo spot on the West Coast schedule. It's not by accident that (CBS Sports chief) Sean McManus and (executive producer) Tony Petitti helped set this up. When you lock in the week between the NFC and AFC Championships games and the Super Bowl, going unopposed to the NFL juggernaut, this becomes a big tournament for many years to come. I've watched in my 20 years the West Coast truely be the opening for the tour, and it used to be the Mercedes (Classic, now in Hawaii) got everyone's attention but that lost a lot of luster and the Doral Open (in Florida) got the windfall. Now it's shifted back to the West Coast. And again not to slight the first three events, but when you have Mr. Woods riding a win streak, it's the tournament that will awaken every golf fan and fringe fan." CBS (Channel 2) has the final two rounds Saturday and Sunday from noon-to-3 p.m.
--Save the date: Someone at ESPN with access to a calculator and a great imagination has decided that the 30,000th live edition of "SportsCenter" happens to fall in a prime-time Sunday spot on Feb. 11 (8 p.m.). Stuart Scott and Steve Levy will host the episode that'll be mashed in with plenty of the usual retrospective, a Bob Ley appearance and plenty of self-congratulations. No Chris Berman walk-on cameo? At least it's not in the script. Yet.
-- The Lakers-San Antonio game is the back end of an NBA doubleheader on ABC Sunday, tipping off at noon after the Cleveland-Phoenix contest. Mike Breen, Mark Jackson and Michele Tafoya call the Lakers-Spurs, and the broadcast will feature SkyCam and something called Freeze Cam, which uses a wide lens to halt video during a replay, then expands the view to show the surroundings before resuming to roll video, allowing commentators to better analyze the play (according to the ESPN press release).
Read on, if you please ...
-- Harkening back to the days when HBO would crank out its “Hard Knocks� reality series prior to the NFL season, the premium cable channel says plans are in motion for a four-episode series that’ll go all access and behind the scenes of preparation for Oscar De La Hoya’s May 5 junior middleweight championship bout against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Which, of course, leads into HBO’s pay-per-view coverage of the event, which many expect to break all kinds of viewing records. The first three half-hour episodes of “De La Hoya/Mayweather 24/7� airs on April 15, 22 and 29 (Sunday nights, 10:30 p.m.) with the final episode on Thursday, May 3, leading into the main event. HBO Sports boss Ross Greenburg says in a release: “The producers will be living at the fighters’ camps 24/7 and the programs we present will appeal far beyond the hard-core boxing fan. Our approach will be to produce a totally unique viewing experience as these two world-class athletes prepare for a defining moment in their respective careers. And we appreciate the commitment and cooperation of the fighters and their teams with this ambitious project.� De La Hoya has actually been on HBO 29 times since he turned pro after the 1992 Summer Olympics gold medal; Floyd has made 20 appearances on the network as a pro following the ’96 Olympics, where he won a bronze medal.
--ABC's coverage of the U.S. Figure Skating championships -- most noteworthy, the women's long program final, which includes Granada Hills' Bebe Liang -- runs live from 1-3 p.m. Saturday. The men's long program goes to ESPN2 live from 8-to-11 p.m.
-- The latest video clip of Tiger Woods' new Buick commercial, where he luckily doesn't seperate a shoulder by accident:
-- NBC’s Tom Hammond, Gary Stevens, Kenny Rice and Donna Barton Brothers call four races from Santa Anita – the Sunshine Millions Distaff, Turf, Sprint and Oaks – in coordination with Sunshine Millions Classic, Fillies and Mares Turf and Sprint, and the Dash stakes races at Gulfstream Park in Florida in a two-hour window (1-to-3 p.m.) on Saturday.
-- ESPN’s kid-friendly Winter X Games from Apsen, Colo., which started Thursday and run through Sunday, are predictably Internet friendly with various original video streaming on EXPN.com and ESPN360 broadband (more than 10 hours live). Video downloads are also available in the Apple iTunes store and ESPN’s mobile phone services. The TV coverage starts today (6:30 p.m. live). Sirius Satellite Radio also has live coverage this weekend on its Faction channel (28).
--Versus has struck up a partnership with World Extreme Cagefighting to televise mixed martial arts competition starting this summer. The deal will include three live events and six one-hour highlight shows.
-- NASCAR.com will relaunch on Thursday, Feb., with a new look and design for the first time since 2002. Among the features will include a TrackPass Race View 3-D application that allows users to watch a particular driver during a Nextel Cup event ($12.95 a month or $79.95 for the year). Turner Sports New Media is helping with the facelift.
--The NFL Network is in a tie for second among the channels that cable operators say they’d like to add by year’s end, according to the Cablefax Daily reporting of a Beta Research study. The others? PBS’ Kids Sprout was first (71 percent), followed by the NFL Network and the Hallmark Movie Channel (70 percent) and College Sports TV (69 percent).
--David Beckham’s first major American TV interview will apparently come before CBS’ Feb. 4 Super Bowl, the London’s Sunday Mirror reports. The paper also says that Jay Leno and Oprah Winfrey “lost out in the bid to clinch� his first major interview.
-- ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith will, for some reason, fulfill a live-long dream and appear on "General Hospital" (on parent company's ABC network) on Friday, Feb. 2 playing the role of a reporter covering a hostage situation. Yelling ensues. Smith admits he's been a fan of "GH" since he was five years old. “I grew up with four sisters, so it was either watch General Hospital or watch nothing,� Smith said. “I’ve been an avid viewer for over 30 years. Let this be a lesson to all the ladies out there: there are men who love the soaps.� Not us.
-- Ducks regular FSN Prime Ticket TV analyst Brian Hayward will work for NBC on its coverage of Sunday's 12:30 p.m. Ducks-Dallas regional contest with Dave Strader and Joe Micheletti. Main crew Mike Emrick, Eddie Olczyk and Pierre McGuire are on the Colorado-Detroit game, while the network will also do Philadelphia-Atlanta.
-- And finally, what we've come to learn as the new most frightening words in sports radio: “This is Shelley Smith with an ESPN extra point� …