The Media Learning Curve I: What's up with more doc stuff?

More unscripted media related things that seem to smoke, choke or otherwise poke around looking for sunligh but won't be in tomorrow's media columnt:

== The NFL reports that for Week 4, only one of the 14 games will be blacked out on local TV -- Tennessee at Jacksonville. That makes 6 1/2 percent of all NFL games since the start of the season -- four of 62 -- were subject to blackout. Prior to this, there were two blackouts in Week 3. An NFL spokesman said they think there's "a pretty good chance that all of Week 5 games will sell out ... although several clubs still have tickets to sell," he said.

== You're not ready for the UFL games on TV yet, right? The equalivant to the NFL's D-League starts Thursday, Oct. 8. Dave Sims and Doug Flutie are supposed to do the games on Versus, with Kordell Stewart and Anita Marks on the sidelines. The gimmick here is that players and coaches will be accessable during the games for interviews and cameras can go into the locker room. Yeah, like the old XFL.

== Mark Cuban's HDNet will also do five games this season, using Kenny Rice on play by play and Paul Maguire on color. They start on Saturday, Oct. 10.

== Fox will wait until this morning to make a final call on its Saturday MLB game at 1 p.m., picking either Washington at Atlanta (with Josh Lewin and Tim McCarver), Florida at Philadelphia (with Tom McCarthy and Mark Grace) or Kansas City at Minnesota (with Darren Sutton and Bert Blyleven)

== MLB Network will have the Chicago White Sox-Detroit game on Saturday (4 p.m.), followed by Colorado-Dodgers (but blacked out in L.A.)

== TBS' plans to cover the first round of the NL and AL playoffs includes these broadcast pairings:
= Chip Caray and Ron Darling
= Boston Red Sox play-by-play man Don Orsillo with Buck Martinez
= Dick Stockton with Bob Brenly
= Milwaukee Brewers broadcaster Brian Anderson with Joe Simpson

In the studio, it's Ernie Johnson, Dennis Eckersley, Cal Ripken and David Wells, plus reporters Tom Verducci, Craig Sager, Marc Fein and David Aldridge.

== A new Community Sports Network (CSN) at Jethawks.com focused on local high school sports launches tonight with the Highland-Quartz Hills contest at 7 p.m., with Will Thornhill and Fred Jaramillo on the call. The Golden League will have a game of the week throughout this fall. Games the rest of the month so far set:

Oct. 9: Palmdale at Quartz Hill
Oct. 16: Antelope Valley at Eastside
Oct. 23: Lancaster at Littlerock

== Time Warner Cable, hiding behind the American flag, says that because of so many service academy teams playing football this week, it'll offer CBS College Sports Network (Channel 261) for free between Monday and Sunday, Oct. 11. On Saturday, Oct. 10, there's Vanderbilt-Army (9 a.m.), Navy-Rice (12:30 p.m.) and TCU-Air Force (4:30 p.m.) on the network.

== No matter how you add it up: Game 1 of the 2009 WNBA Finals -- Phoenix's 120-116 OT victory over Indiana, if somehow you missed it -- had a whopping 0.4 rating. That's actually up 33 percent from a year ago -- 0.3, for the first game of the WNBA Finals.

== If we don't mention this, maybe it won't happen: To help promote ESPN's coverage of Green Bay at Minnesota on Monday -- because the network needs all the extra exposure and marketing it can get -- the otherwise lame show "SportsNation" (Monday 2 p.m., ESPN2) will have a one-hour "Brett Favre Blowout" and "poke fun at the media fascination with Favre: by having hosts Colin Cowherd and Michelle Beadle attempt to say "Favre" 275 times during the show (since he will be starting a record 275th consecutive game).
The show will be lucky if anyone in the media mentions "SportsNation" more than 275 times during its entire existence.
"I love three things in life: my family, my dog and Brett Favre," Beadle said. "Not necessarily in that order." Cowherd said he will buy Wranglers for the entire crew to wear.
"The producers told me I needed to mention Brett's name 150 times on Monday," Cowherd said. "I didn't realize that made this show different than any other one."

AND FINALLY:

== The Kings, starting their 41st regular season in L.A. on Saturday (minus the lockout year), have these plans announced on how they'll use Twitter -- within media folks, that is, at Twitter.com/LAKingsHockey.
= Prior to every game on FSN West, analyst Jim Fox will post alerts
= Radio analyst Daryl Evans will have news and notes before each broadcast.
= Reporter Heidi Androl will post during the home game (Twitter.com/Handrol)
= New beat writer Rich Hammond will tweet about things he's posted on LAKings.com (Twitter.com/lakingsinsider.com)
= Assistant trainer Joe Caligiuri will tweet as well (Twitter.com/lakingstrainer)

The Kings say that when they told everyone business operations boss Luc Robitaille would be twittering from the floor of the 2009 NHL draft last June, the Kings' Twitter account went from 2,974 followers to nearly 3,400. These days, it's up past 6,300.

That's a good thing, right?