More media morsels: Call 'em as you see 'em

== KSPN-AM (710) says it has extended its agreement to be the flagship station of USC football and basketball through 2010-11. The current deal, signed in April, 2006, ran through 2008-09.

==Along the lines of "Acceptable TV," the sketch-comedy show that Jack Black was the executive producer on and aired on VH1, The Speed Channel will try a show called "Launch Hour," where it airs a five-episode series and then asks viewers to decide whether it's worth continuing in the regular rotation. Show creator Rich Christensen has come up with 11 different concepts and is taping all of them to show during the window that begins Sunday at with two of them: "Blow It Up" at 7 p.m. and "Name that Test and Tune" at 7:30 p.m. The former is a drag racing contest where engine builders try to keep their ride on the road, and the later is described as a "Jeopardy"-style show for car nuts. From there, viewers can go to the Speed Channel site and submit their opinions.

==Fox officials say that NFL analyst/sideline reporter Bill Maas, who was arrested and released last week for drug possession and weapons charges during a roadside check in Peoria, Ill., wasn’t on the short list to return to the network this fall anyway, but any chance of him being used on regional games now isn’t going to happen. The former Pro Bowl defensive tackle joined Fox Sports in 1996, three years after his retirement, and hasn’t been fulltime the last two years, used mostly as a colorman on two or three regional contests last season that went to a smaller market. The progress of Tim Ryan and Brian Baldinger was what mostly led to Maas getting fewer assignments.
Maas and his passenger, Sarah Murphy, have a Aug. 21 courtdate to explain why he had a .22-caliber revolver, 5 grams of suspected marijuana, 6 grams of suspected cocaine and 28 pills of Ecstasy, according to police.
(And thanks to the NoMaas blogspot for digging up them booking photos).
As pointed out on the AOL blog The Fan House, Maas was, at one point , considered one of the up-and-coming talents in the football broadcasting business, as Sports Illustrated's Paul Zimmerman wrote at the end of the 2000 season. He called Maas and partner Sam Rosen one of the best broadcasting teams.

==Golfweek reports that Vince Cellini, current host of the Golf Channel's "Fore Inventors Only" reality show series that airs Tuesday nights, is leaving the network after 3 1/2 years because he was "looking for a deal that would reflect the changes in 2007."

==The 2007 ESPY Celebrity Golf Classic at the Pacific Palms courses in Industry Hills Golf Club raised $1.3 million in net proceeds for The V Foundation for Cancer Research, the network announced. When the event began in 2002, it generated $125,000. The celebrity and entertainment field that played in the event will be featured in a show airing on ESPN Classic on Aug. 12 at 8 a.m.

==ABC can't expect the WNBA All-Star game to draw much of an audience, but they'll televise it anyway Sunday (12:30 p.m.) from Washington D.C. with Dave Pasch, Doris Burke, Heather Cox and Rebecca Lobo. Host Linda Cohn and analyst Nancy Lieberman are on the pregame.

== Is Dan Davis, the ESPN Radio update man every 20 minutes, finally finished dropping in promos for "The Bronx is Burning" in the middle of the half-dozen headlines? He did that ad-nauseum on Monday to promote the first episode of the ESPN miniseries, which from now on will air on Tuesday nights starting next week. But he did it so seemlessly, right after news about the lineups for the MLB All-Star game, and before a story about Phil Mickelson. Wonder if they were by orders from up above, or he really felt it was newsworthy. On one update, he started the story by "reporting" that "there are postive reviews for the new ESPN series ..." Another one made sure people knew "Oliver Platt (pictured) plays the role of George Steinbrenner in ..."
Maybe the next thing that can be introduced as fake news is that the DVD of the show will be available for sale on Sept. 25 for $39.92.

==Website updates:
-Walteromalley.com, the official website of the life of former Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley commisioned by son Peter O'Malley's company, added a new feature on the home page called, “Timeline of Baseball’s Historic Expansion to the West Coast” that lays out a chronology of influential events in the 1940s and 1950s that led to MLB's expansion as it is today.
-And Dodgers broadcaster Rick Monday has a site constructed for him, rickmonday.com, that, for the time being, focuses on on the 1976 American flag rescue at Dodger Stradium, complete with a three-minute clip.

==The SportsBusiness Journal reports that the Dodgers and Major League Baseball Advanced Media have resolved their Video On Demand rights issue that came up when the team and Time Warner Cable struck a deal last year to air highlights and interviews on its system. MLB president and COO Bob DuPuy told the publication that the Dodgers will now be limited to show shoulder programming and some highlights through the format, and the MLB's othe r29 teams have the option to pursue VOD deals under the same provisions. The Dodgers' Time Warner Deal violated a 2000 agreement that designated MLBAM as rights holder to the sport's interactive media.

==Back, back, back to ESPN's Home Run Derby coverage: The lack of any balls even remotely going into McCovey Cove took away any uniqueness to Monday's extended presentation, meaning ESPN reporter Kenny Mayne had nothing to do except paddle around looking stupid. Eventually, he climbed out of his kayak and joined the fans in left field.
At one point during the coverage, Chris Berman threw it out to Mayne out in the water with all his expensive cameras and scuba gear, and he quipped: "We’re doing a good test of the equipment. We’re going to do something like this a the NHL All Star Game.”
Berman quipped back: “Maybe at the Pond in Anaheim?”
Yeah, maybe. If it was still named the Pond instead of the Honda Center. This, from a guy who still refers to Angels Stadium as “The Ed." At least he didn't refer to AT&T Park as "Pac Bell Park," although every long-ball hit during the contest was either "on its way to" Salsalito, Alcatraz or Stinton Beach.

==Not that it mattered much, but the reason why the ESPN "Baseball Tonight" crew of Karl Ravech, John Kruk and Steve Phillips weren’t at the All Star Game in San Francisco and instead doing their post-game stuff back in Bristol, Conn., studios looking as if they were selling something on QVC was because the MLB punished the network for breaking an embargo by announcing the All-Star rosters before the end of the July 1 selection show exclusively on TBS.
It's tough to fault ESPN on this one. TBS' announcement was supposed to come in a one-hour show at 4 p.m. EDT, but the Atlanta Braves games preceeding it had a rain delay, plus extra innings, and went over. ESPN ended up reporting the NL starters before the TBS show aired, using a story that the Associated Press release by mistake on its wire services (also breaking the embargo). The AP sent an advisory after that transmission, saying the list was to be held until after the TBS show.
ESPN did gave out also the entire rosters shortly after they were announced on TBS but before the end of the TBS show in violation of baseball's embargo -- kind of like how ESPN announces the NCAA Tournament brackets after CBS has first rights to it. It's a sticky, legalese situation that probably the viewer at home doesn't always recognize -- or care about -- but in the land of rights fees and exclusivity paying for the news, it matters to the networks who do their own check and balances.
In this age of instant news, how is one network, or news gathering source, supposed to sit on something when it goes past a set embargo time window? At some point, it had to be announced. It's not fair to anyone that TBS still had exclusive rights once it got past a certain time. Next time, plan better.

==It was with plenty of self-effacing smugness that the ESPN show "Around the Horn" celebrated its 1,000th episode on Tuesday -- without any press-release fanfare offered up from the network's own publicity churning department. We only saw it because it was up on the TV monitor at the gym while we struggled with the right seat height on the stationary bike. Chicago Sun Times columnist Jay Mariotti, the show's "winner" on that day for whatever they were squaking about, wondered aloud when original show host Max Kellerman would be coming back, and also said: "We'll have another 1,000 shows, much to the chagrin of critics everywhere." Denver Post columnist Woody Paige estimated show No. 2,000 would be on March 12, 2011. Save the date. Maybe by then, the latest sexual harassment lawsuit against the network (and focused on both Paige and Jay Crawford) will be settled.

==KLAC has taken the Westwood One deal to make 570-AM the place to hear the syndicated network's presentation of two NFL games each Sunday, the Thanksgiving Day tripleheader, the NFL playoffs, the Pro bowl and exclusive rights to the Super Bowl. KFWB-AM (980) has had that deal in previous years.

== HBO announced its next sports documentary will focus on the Ohio State-Michigan college football rivalry. It is schedule to air on Tuesday, Nov. 13, four days before the teams meet in Ann Arbor, Mich., this fall. Former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler was interviewed for the piece shortly before his death last fall.

== Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant will call Saturday's Antonio Margarito-Paul Williams bout for the 147-pound title to be held at the Home Depot Center in Carson, the third of a tripleheader card that HBO begins with Arturo Gatti-Alfonso Gomez and Kermit Cintron-Walter Matthysse in Atlantic City, N.J. at 6 p.m. Bob Papa and Max Kellerman do the two bouts from New Jersey. Harold Lederman will score all three fights from his Atlantic City perch.

==For the second year in a row, ESPN offers live pay-per-view coverage of the Final Table of The World Series of Poker from The Rio in Las Vegas on Tuesday for $19.95. Its available both through TV or online video streaming at ESPN.com, starting at noon and continuing until a champion is decided.

== The 100-minute documentary, "Dale," on the life of the late NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, can be seen at a special screening on Thursday (July 19) at 7:30 p.m. the AMC Promenade 16 in Woodland Hills, Regal Alhambra Renaissance 14, AMC Century City 15, AMC Ontario Mills 30 or Regal Irvine Spectrum 21. The $10 tickets are available online. The doc, created by NASCAR Images and CMT Movies, will air later on the country music network in the fall. Paul Newman narrates what is billed as the only film authorized by the Earnhardt family which, according to the website DaleTheMovie.com, provides “the most accurate presentation of Earnhardt’s life and career" and received decent reviews for showing the softer side of the driver who died at the 2001 Daytonat 500. So, does that mean the thing ESPN created called "3" wasn't right?

==Highlights from the Top 10 list that Venus Williams delivered on Monday, two days after she won at Wimbledon, on "Late Show With David Letterman," on the topic: "Top 10 Things Venus Williams Would Like to Say After Winning her Fourth Wimbledon Title":
8. Frankly, I prefer racquetball.
7. At the rate I'm going, I'll have 50 Wimbledon titles by the age of 120.
3. Imagine how I'd do if I practiced.
2. Don't tell me how I did in the finals ... I TiVo'd it.
In the stunning tight black shirt and very short black shorts, Williams' appearance got a "wow!" out of Letterman and even got Paul Shaffer to say, "Oh, my, she's got everything."

==The NFL Network is all geared up to show you the games that don't count, but at least fill up the time before they really do. Starting with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio on Aug. 5, the NFL Network announced it will air 52 exhibition games over 29 days. That's all but the 13 games that will be shared by CBS, Fox, ESPN and NBC. Eight of those 52 will be exclusive with Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth on the call. Four of the eight are part of a live doubleheader, on Saturday, Aug. 25 and Thursday, Aug. 30 at 4 and 7 p.m. The NFL Network is producing only two of those games -- New Orleans-Pittsburgh on Aug. 5 and Washington-Tennessee on Aug. 11. The other six are simulcasts with the home-team's network coverage, and will use both sets of announcers. Meaning, on the Thursday, Aug. 30 game between San Francisco and San Diego at 7 p.m., the Chargers announcers will be heard in the first half on the NFL Network feed, while the 49ers announcers are heard for the second half. The entire schedule is up on NFL.com.

==The latest sharp-pointed criticism of ESPN and how its run via the network-hired ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber gets into how it seems the play-by-play and analysts are so overprepared that they congest a broadcast to a point where they're not even paying attention to the actual game. "Too much talk, too little game is the quintessential complaint about ESPN's event telecasting," Schreiber wrote. "I think the complaint arises from a mismatch between what event producers think viewers want and what at least some of us viewers actually want." Schreiber then quotes Jed Drake, ESPN's senior vice president for remote productions, as saying: "Those of us who oversee all of this are probably our own worst enemies because we continually demand that our production teams are incredibly prepared to do a telecast that is rich in context, and at the same time have the discipline to be restrained enough to give the telecast some room to breathe. To some degree, these are conflicting agendas." Drake added about the thought there's not enough silence on a broadcast to allow it to breathe: "At times I feel a bit like Don Quixote. A little bit of natural sound would be a good thing." Schreiber concludes: "Perhaps the problem is one of announcers' being overprepared and games' being overproduced, resulting in live telecasts more scripted than spontaneous. Announcers should not have to multitask through every minute of a three- or four-hour event."
As another observation Schreiber said she "received not a single complaint about the ABC announcing team of Mike Breen, Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy" during the NBA playoffs and finals. Maybe because no one was watching? "If one did hit the mute button, it was not their voices but the arena's boosterish, blaring sound system one wanted to silence," she added. Gotta agree with that.

==Not that you need another list to read, but here's the one ESPN released Thursday to run down all two dozen people they've got on the payroll, ready to go on the air and become NFL experts this fall (noting the major changes: Ron Jaworski replaces Joe Theisman on Monday Night Football, Keyshawn Johnson and Emmitt Smith are added to Sunday NFL Countdown and the rest ... you figure it out):
Eric Allen (analyst, NFL Live)
Chris Berman (host, Sunday NFL Countdown, Monday Night Countdown)
Mike Ditka (analyst, NFL Primetime, Monday Night Countdown)
Mike Golic (analyst, NFL Live)
James Hasty (analyst, NFL Live)
Merrill Hoge (analyst, NFL Live and NFL Primetime)
Tom Jackson (analyst, Sunday NFL Countdown, Monday Night Countdown)
Ron Jaworski (analyst, Monday Night Football)
Keyshawn Johnson (analyst, Sunday NFL Countdown, Monday Night Countdown)
Suzy Kolber (sideline reporter, Monday Night Football)
Tony Kornheiser (commentator, Monday Night Football)
Chris Mortensen (reporter, Sunday NFL Countdown, Monday Night Countdown)
Bill Parcells (analyst, Monday Night Countdown)
Floyd Reese (analyst, NFL Live)
Sean Salisbury (analyst, NFL Live)
Mark Schlereth (analyst, NFL Live and NFL Primetime)
Stuart Scott (host, Monday Night Countdown)
Emmitt Smith (analyst, Sunday NFL Countdown and Monday Night Countdown)
Michele Tafoya (sideline reporter, Monday Night Football)
Mike Tirico (play-by-play, Monday Night Football)
Stan Verrett (host, Football Friday)
Trey Wingo (host, NFL Live and NFL Primetime)
Darren Woodson (analyst, NFL Live)
Steve Young (analyst, Monday Night Countdown)

==And finally, ratings for those who care:
-NBC says the Los Angeles rating of 2.8 with a 10 share was below the national overnight rating of 3.2/9 for the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal men’s Wimbledon final that aired locally from 6 a.m. to noon. West Palm Beach, Fla., had the best mark of 7.0/17 and New York was at 3.8/11, as both markets were in the time frame that saw it from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
-And the Associated Press loves to run this graphic every time there's another ratings drop in some major event -- like the MLB All Star Game. It's easy to see how the numbers fall year to year with everything that's going away from the traditional three-network setup to the 500-channel universe. Here's the evidence over the last 40 years of All-Star games (with year, network, rating/share and total households):

1967: NBC, 25.6/ 50 (14,050,000) at Anaheim
1968: NBC, 25.8/ 49 (14,450,000)
1969: NBC, 15.1/ 42 (8,610,000)

1970: NBC, 28.5/ 54 (16,670,000)
1971: NBC, 27.0/ /50 (16,230,000)
1972: NBC, 22.9/ 43 (15,420,000)
1974: NBC, 23.4/ 44 (15,490,000)
1975: NBC, 21.5/ 41 (14,730,000)
1976: ABC, 27.1/ 53 (18,680,000)
1977: NBC, 24.5/ 45 (17,440,000)
1978: ABC, 26.1/ 47 (19,030,000)
1979: NBC, 24.4/ 45 (18,180,000)

1980: ABC, 26.8/ 46 (20,450,000) at Dodger Stadium
1981: NBC, 20.1/ 36 (15,640,000)
1982 :ABC, 25.0/ 44 (20,380,000)
1983: NBC, 21.5/ 39 (17,910,000)
1984: ABC, 20.1/ 35 (16,840,000)
1985: NBC, 20.5/ 36 (17,400,000)
1986: ABC, 20.3/ 35 (17,440,000)
1987: NBC, 18.2/ 37 (15,910,000)
1988: ABC, 20.4/ 33 (18,070,000)
1989: NBC, 18.2/ 33 (16,450,000) at Anaheim

1990: CBS, 16.2/ 33 (14,940,000)
1991: CBS, 17.4/ 32 (16,200,000)
1992: CBS, 14.9/ 27 (13,720,000)
1993: CBS, 15.6/ 28 (14,550,000)
1994: NBC, 15.7/ 28 (14,790,000)
1995: ABC, 13.9/ 25 (13,260,000)
1996: NBC, 13.2/ 23 (12,659,000)
1997: Fox, 11.8/ 21 (11,446,000)
1998: NBC, 13.3/ 25 (13,034,000)
1999: Fox, 12.0/ 22 (11,928,000)

2000: NBC, 10.1/ 18 (10,181,000)
2001: Fox, 11.0/ 19 (11,242,000)
2002: Fox, 9.5/ 17 (10,023,000)
2003: Fox, 9.5/ 17 (10,137,000)
2004: Fox, 8.8/ 15 (9,504,000)
2005: Fox, 8.1/ 14 (8,878,000)
2006: Fox, 9.3/ 16 (10,248,000)
2007: Fox, 8.4/ 15 (9,358,000)