More media spillage than one newspaper column and notebook can hold ....

-- Official word finally came out that, at last, Petros Papadakis will return to the L.A. sports-talk airwaves, teamming up with Matt "Money" Smith in the KLAC-AM (570) afternoon drive 4-7 p.m. slot starting this Monday. Papadakis, who left 1540-AM a few months back after starting his radio career and picking up a No. 1 ranking in our 2006 Best/Worst of L.A. Media poll for sports-talk hosts, had been rumored to be going to 570 for some time now, but nothing could be said until the contracts were worked out. The announcement was finally made Friday after station program director Don Martin gives Joe Grande and Wayne Cook the standard "we're going in a new direction" speech. “Right now the crazy thing is I haven't worked on the radio in three months so I've got so many things built up in my brain that my head is about to explode," Papadakis said. Smith added: "Of all the talented people I’ve had the privilege to work with, I say with great certainty Petros is right at the top. His passion, creative genius and unique perspective on not just sports, but all talking points is a refreshing change from what this city was accustomed.“ Daily News USC beat writer Scott Wolf, a regular on Papadakis' 1540 show, has already posted a blog item on this. The 570-AM website has already taken down the bios of Cook and Grande from the "Good Times" show promos.
The news comes as KSPN-AM (710) went ahead and hired Kevin Kiley to babysit D'Marco Farr on the 1-3 p.m. slot., starting Tuesday, Jan.16. Good luck with that one. Kiley has assignments as an NFL sideline reporter for Westwood One coverage of the NFL playoffs for the time being and is willing to relocate to L.A. since he has a kid attending UCLA. Will the show get better? At least Killey will challenge Farr on all his half-baked ideas about what makes the sports world go around. And on NFL picks, we're guessing Kiley would at least win against a dog.
Knowing these two hirings were on the way, we decided to hold off the release of the 2007 Best/Worst of L.A. Media series until February to give these guys a chance to settle in and work their way into the Top 10 list, where they belong.

-- If you're forced to watch a meaningful BCS game without the voice of Keith Jackson setting the tone, at least Fox has the right attitude to try a Terry Bradshaw-Howie Long pairing, as it did with some fun results during Wednesday's Sugar Bowl. The comedy team, trying to follow Kenny Albert's lead, would be an inspired choice if given time to replace the mixed-and-match Thom Brennaman-Barry Alvarez-Charles Davis trio for Monday's BCS Championship game telecast. Fox, which has the Cotton, Orange, Fiesta, Sugar and BCS title games through 2009, might at least consider the switch in the coming seasons. Unable to hire away Kirk Herbstreit, Gary Danielson or Todd Blackledge from their respective networks for the BCS title game, Fox may have its best team of analysts already in house disguised as NFL studio comedians.
Fox Sports chief Ed Goren said he was also pleased at how former UCLA coach Terry Donahue meshed with former USC quarterback Pat Haden on the Orange Bowl telecast on Tuesday. "Pat Haden is a wonderful broadcaster and the fact that (NBC Sports chief) Dick Ebersol was kind enough to allow him to do it, and for him to want to join us and give up a New Year's Eve was very special," said Goren of the regular NBC Notre Dame game analyst. "He and Donahue worked well and I suggested to Terry that he adopt Pat; he's so quirky that I think he elevated Terry's performance. I heard things out of Terry that I hadn't heard all year (on NFL broadcasts). Blame Pat for that."
By the way, all of Fox’s BCS bowl games are or will be available for watching in full or condensed versions for the first time ever on digital downloads at the Fox Sports site. Fox Interactive Media’s Direct2Drive also has the downloads, as well as Apple’s iTunes, Amazon’s Unbox, AOL Video, CinemaNow and Instand Media. The Jan. 1 Cotton Bowl was streamed live for the first time on the Internet. “Our goal is to expand the reach of the Bowl Championship Series through as many platforms as possible, and digital rights have become a more important part of the media mix every year,‿ said Gary Ehrlich, Executive Vice President of Fox Sports Enterprises. “This content offering represents important first steps in digital delivery for both the BCS and FOX Sports, and we look forward to finding more ways to deliver sports content to fans via digital download in the future.‿ Game highlight packages run for $1.99 each, while the full-length games cost $2.99. A $19.99 package includes the entire bundle of video. ABC, not Fox, carried the Rose Bowl, so that game included in this BCS package.

-- Thanks to San Diego Union-Tribune's Jay Posner for capturing the essence of the speech that Brennaman delivered about a post-season playoff -- right as Boise State was lining up for a two-point conversion that would decide the game in overtime. We tried to remember what was going on in a previous blog entry, but the TiVo ran out just before that play went off, and we only went off what we saw live. “Fellas,‿ said Brennaman before the snap, “you know what everybody across the country that's watching right now is saying: It's calls like this, it's effort like this, guts like this, which screams for a playoff in Division I-A football.‿ Finally, it was analyst Alvarez who said, "Let's watch the play!" to knock Brennaman off his soap box.

-- KSPN-AM (710) went ahead and hired Kevin Kiley to babysit D'Marco Farr on the 1-3 p.m. slot., starting Tuesday, Jan.16. Good luck with that one. Kiley has assignments as an NFL sideline reporter for Westwood One coverage of the NFL playoffs for the time being and is willing to relocate to L.A. since he has a kid attending UCLA. Will the show get better? At least Killey will challenge Farr on all his half-baked ideas about what makes the sports world go around. And on NFL picks, we're guessing Kiley would at least win against a dog.

-- With no more Sunday night football, NBC yields to the man with the astroturf head of hair, Donald Trump, and his sixth season of "The Apprentice" (debuts Sunday from 9:30 to 11 p.m. before settling in on a regular one-hour schedule from 9-10 p.m.). Of the 18 contestants -- isn't there a way to sneak Rosie O'Donnell into the mix just to hear Trump chew her out? -- we can't help but pull for U.S. women's Olympic hockey player, Angela Ruggiero, (pictured), the Simi Valley native who grew up in the San Fernando Valley before moving with her mom to Michigan after a college career at Harvard. In her "Apprentice" video clip on the show's website, Ruggiero says she's moving to New York soon. Her plans include training for this year's World Championships and trying to make the 2010 U.S. squad, which would be her fourth Olympics (she has a bronze, silver and gold medal so far). Ruggiero was added to the cast based on winning an Internet vote on the NBCSports.com website during the 2006 Winter Games. "There were a lot of smart people and a lot of Type A personalities in this show and going at it every day," said Ruggiero. on her website. "However, I have to say that being an athlete, I was definitely prepared for the challenge. The self confidence, discipline and hard work ethic that I’ve acquired over the years definitely transfers into the business world."

-- NBCSports.com’s John Walters finishes his 10 bowl games in 21 days of traveling 15,000 miles with Monday’s BCS Championship game in Glendale, Ariz. “I just feel like the luckiest man in Bedford Falls,‿ Walters wrote in his first blog, plotting out the “bowlnanza‿ itinery that started in San Diego with the Poinsettia Bowl on Dec. 19 and included stops in Las Vegas, Hawaii, San Francisco, back to San Diego, Phoenix, Boise, Glendale, Ariz. (the Fiesta; instead of Pasadena for the Rose), New Orleans and, coming soon, a U-turn to Arizona.

-- We kinda expected some chest thumping by both ESPN and NBC for how things played out during their first seasons of the NFL on Monday and Sunday nights for their respective networks, and neither disappointed in how they publicized it. ESPN describes its first “MNF‿ season as “the most-watched series in cable TV history,‿ taking the top 17 spots for a cable TV show during 2006 with an 8.2 household rating. NBC says it averaged 17.7 million viewers through its first 16 Sunday telecasts, up 8 percent from what ABC did with “MNF‿ last year, if that’s the proper comparison. NBC says its “SNF‿ averaged 17.5 million viewers, or 1.2 million more than ABC did with a slumping “MNF‿ franchise a year ago. Truth be told, every NFL broadcaster finished ahead of 2005, according to Neilsen’s twisted numbers. Fox’s 10.7 average rating was up seven percent and CBS’ 9.9 average rating was one percent up.

-- NBC, which has the NFL wildcard doubleheader on Saturday, will go greyhound with counterprogramming during Sunday’s NFL playoff games on the rival networks with the “Incredible Dog Challenge‿ (9-10:30 a.m.), an “Olympic-style sports event‿ where competitive canines do things like high jumping (watch for Soaring Cindy, who sets a Guinness Book of World Record leap of 5-feet, 8-inches), obstacle course runs, a Jack Russell terrier hurdles sprint, diving into water and chasing down Frisbees. Trace Worthington, who did some real Olympics coverage for the network, has the bark-by-bark duties for the event taped last October in St. Louis. NBC has carried this event now four years.

-- FSN West's latest “Before the Bigs" focuses on Lakers forward Luke Walton and debuts Sunday at 9:30 p.m., following the Lakers-Mavericks game. Joel Meyers narrates the piece.

-- Going full throttle into its renewed coverage of NASCAR in addition to IndyCar, Champ Car and NHRA, ESPN2 starts its block of “Garage‿ shows this weekend — “Truck Stop,‿ “Chopper Nation,‿ “Drive,‿ and “Michael Waltrip Racing.‿ ESPN2 plans for more than 500 hours of motorsports programming this year.

-- ESPN will reveal the Baseball Hall of Fame's 2007 class of inductees at 11 a.m. Monday. It'll be the guy who doesn't get voted in -- Mark McGwire -- who draws the most attention on this show.