Tony Verna's 'Talking Replay,' in action

Tony Verna, the Woodland Hills-based TV producer who invented the instant replay 45 years ago (check out this blog-posting story on him from a little over a week ago), has pulled off another first.

And he did it with a high school football game that you may have seen.

On LA36's coverage of the San Pedro-Narbonne L.A. City championship from Saturday, the first "Talking Replay" was implimented, with Verna's guidance. The game was replayed on LA36, KLCS-Channel 58 and on DirecTV.

"Despite the city station's limited resources, it pulled it off," said Verna in an email.

Verna's idea was put into motion: Record audio of players describing how they perform a certain task -- break free of a defensive back, look for holes in the line, etc. -- and have them stored to use during a replay. So instead of a TV analyst guessing what was going on, you have the player's version already prepared.

In this case, LA36 recorded the voice of San Pedro All-City linebacker Robert Franco and added it during his replay immediately after his key block-tackle.

"The game commentary was given an additional perspective as Franco imparted his subjective thinking on how he planned to jam a running play," said Verna. "While it was bare-bones and done by a bare-bones city station, it still proved that Talking Replay could capture an element of added drama--- as Franco imparted a first-person perspective to the instant rerun of his play---- and by doing so allowed LA36 to live up to their mandate -- 'to find new and novel ways of connecting directly with the community.' "

Added Verna: "The station said that they didn't experience any birth pains and said that the concept seemed ready to go mainstream. What could be better than an open-to-the-public proof of concept demonstration of the Talking Relay, the same as I performed 45 years ago when airing the first Instant Replay--- also without any rehearsal."

Could this kind of technology end up on an NFL Network, ESPN, ABC, Fox, CBS or NBC telecast of a football game? Maybe now they can see -- and hear -- the benefits of it.