NBC Proposal To Split U.S. Nationals Coverage Over Two Weekends

[childfreegirl]

About the men and pairs going first, I believe the main reason for this was because the men and pairs skate in the first week of the Olympics shortly after nationals. So by following the Olympic schedule it will give the men and pairs adequate time to prepare between events.

But do they really get the extra training time if they have to stick around to skate in the exhibitions a week later? No matter how much ice time is available locally, they still couldn't have the quality of training that they do at home, so can that really be counted as extra time?

 

[R.D.]

NBC has a tendency to seem to try to give struggling sports a shot. Remember the XFL? the AFL? The latter got weekly exposure but never quite took off. Still, they managed to land a cool ESPN deal after NBC finally gave up. I think ABC even shows a couple of games.

Now it is the NHL and skating's turn. Both were dumped by ABC prior to their NBC deals; and NBC is giving both sports more exposure on network TV than they've had in a while. Will it work? The NHL seems to be flatlining at the moment. The Winter Classic did pull in some extra viewers but those viewers turned their heads as soon as regular coverage began. It was also announced today that NBC will televise NHL games next season but has dumped games 3 and 6 of the Stanley cup final (so they will air only games 4, 5 and 7).

After being confined to cable, the skating nationals this year got the most broadcast exposure it has had since the '98 Olympics. It was successful to a point; the ratings went up but not high enough to justify keeping it on the air. Still, we try again next year and see what happens. It does not help that the US ladies are in their worst rut in 15 years. No US Ladies on the world podium for two consecutive years. Also, it does not help that the top contenders right now are kids.

On the bright side, ANY increase in ratings/viewership is a positive. One has to hope the US ladies get better so there is actually something about the event to promote. Otherwise, who cares?

 

[Mathman]

Huh? No it's not. It's not what it used to be, sure, but it is still drawing some of ESPN's biggest ratings. I think it's still very much alive and kicking.

I meant, it's gone from major network TV. ABC feels that reality shows, quiz shows and sitcoms will attract a greater general audience on Monday night prime time.

This in inself isn't bad, I guess. Sports channels for people who want to watch sports, Home and Garden for Martha Stewart fans (oh wait, Martha has both a regular netwark show and a cable show.)

Maybe the Figure Skating Channel will be successful enough to fill this niche.

The strangest one to me is the Golf Channel. They never get to show any major tournaments, but you can get re-runs of the 1984 Doral Open any time you want.

 

[R.D.]

But do they really get the extra training time if they have to stick around to skate in the exhibitions a week later? No matter how much ice time is available locally, they still couldn't have the quality of training that they do at home, so can that really be counted as extra time?

I suggest they also break the gala up into two separate events. The Network has the freedom to cut and paste footage after the fact.

 

[R.D.]

I meant, it's gone from major network TV. ABC feels that reality shows, quiz shows and sitcoms will attract a greater general audience on Monday night prime time.

And in general, it has. Putting DWTS on Monday brings the network to a ratings win every night. I don't know if MNF did the same throughout its last years. Even if it did, I think cost was a major issue and they were losing tons of money on it, so they had to dump it regardless of viewing audience, it seems.

Maybe the Figure Skating Channel will be successful enough to fill this niche.

The strangest one to me is the Golf Channel. They never get to show any major tournaments, but you can get re-runs of the 1984 Doral Open any time you want.

I think there was an "Ice Channel" trying to get off the ground a few years ago, but the sponsors never flocked to them. It skews female and too young/old; the advertisers want the 18-49 crowd. We are going back to the days prior to the Whack and I think the fans better get used to less TV coverage. Thankfully, unlike in the '80s there is now Live Internet Streaming so fans can actually see MORE skating than before. Don't know why that doesn't get more credit though.

 

[Mathman]

Thankfully, unlike in the '80s there is now Live Internet Streaming so fans can actually see MORE skating than before. Don't know why that doesn't get more credit though.

I think most people at the high end of that 18-49 demographic are just not used to plopping down in front of their computer (rather than their TV) for their evening's entertainment, yet.

This will change as the 49-year-olds turn 50 and are discarded by advertisers. As the target group gradually becomes dominated by younger viewers who had computers in their cradles, I agree that this alternative will probably be the future of figure skating coverage.

Even if it did, I think cost was a major issue and they were losing tons of money on it, so they had to dump it regardless of viewing audience, it seems.

I think the cost factor is the main thing driving decisions about what to put on TV these days. Unscripted shows (game shows, American Idol, Survivor) are very cheap to produce.

In contrast, dramas and even sitcoms can only afford to make a handful of "all new episodes" (as the hype goes) each season.

But do they really get the extra training time if they have to stick around to skate in the exhibitions a week later?

I like Red Dog's suggestion of a split gala or of taped performances for the men and pairs. Naionals ends on Saturday, January 23, with the exhibitions the next day, I would suppose. The Olympics starts three weeks later, February 12, and I think the pairs are amoung the very first thing up.

At least jet lag and travel problems will not be a factor for U.S. skaters traveling to Vancouver.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Still lots of speculation going on and it's answers we are lookin for the big questions. Most skating fans to do not want to pay for it. Accepted. So can anyone give official answers. We have enough repeated speculations.

BIG QUESTIONS:

1. How will they broadcast the 2009 Cleveland Nats ? No speculation, please. Some of us want to make a decision or not to attend by official word.

2. 2010 Nats (Wherever) schedules are pending?

3. Will Skate America in 2008 Everett be televised the same as was the SA 2007(Reading)? and NBC will cover the SAs in 2008 (Everett) and 2009(Wherever) similarly?

4. No problem with 2010 Olys, NBC will cover as it has in the past.

5. After 2010 Olys, no word about 2010 Worlds or what's next officially?

We have had enough speculation to fill the above blanks. Can Hersch or anyone else give us an official statement?

Joe

 

[sillylionlove]

Programming decisions by the networks are all about the ALMIGHTY DOLLAR (although it's not really almighty now.) NBC has never been knows as a sports powerhouse network. You have ABC which always had sports on remember Wide World of Sports...they could play aything during that time and people would watch and CBS...home to golf, NCAA basketball tournament and of course college football. Then FOX came into play with NASCAR, football, baseball and NBC didn't really have much. They bid for Sunday night football and got it. I feel and again this is just my opinion, they are starting to build their sports Division, first by getting the Olympics for who knows how long and then getting football and now they are getting figure skating and I am sure they are trying to get other sports to compete with the other three networks.

As for heavyweight champion of the world, which another poster mentioned......this was never shown on regular TV....these matches were always on pay per view and they continue to be on pay per view. NASCAR is still extremely popular and I think it has replaces INDY car racing in popularity.
One of ESPN biggest ratings success is the X games...both winter and summer. I think this shows you were sports today is going.....again just my opinion. I think that sports really depend on having a big name that draws people in...for instance Shaun White. Even if you aren't a snowboaring fan or ever watch the sport...you probably know who he is...you have seen his HP computer commercials...his american express comercials...plus he has a look that you can't forget really...red hair...nickname flying tomoto?

Skating doens't have a big name right now that will draw people in that aren't already skating fans. Here is an example...I have a client...a 10 year old girl who loves to figure skate. She just started taking lessons and when I visit with her that's all she talks about. I asked who her favorite skater was and she said...I don't know any of their names....sad really..I think I have said enough now..

 

[R.D.]

Still lots of speculation going on and it's answers we are lookin for the big questions. Most skating fans to do not want to pay for it. Accepted. So can anyone give official answers. We have enough repeated speculations.

BIG QUESTIONS:

1. How will they broadcast the 2009 Cleveland Nats ? No speculation, please. Some of us want to make a decision or not to attend by official word.

2. 2010 Nats (Wherever) schedules are pending?

3. Will Skate America in 2008 Everett be televised the same as was the SA 2007(Reading)? and NBC will cover the SAs in 2008 (Everett) and 2009(Wherever) similarly?

4. No problem with 2010 Olys, NBC will cover as it has in the past.

5. After 2010 Olys, no word about 2010 Worlds or what's next officially?

We have had enough speculation to fill the above blanks. Can Hersch or anyone else give us an official statement?

Joe

1. My assumption is that it will be similar to the way they did it in St. Paul. Stay Tuned

http://www.cleveland2009.com/index.htm

2. Posted in the Hersh article above

3. This is a wait-and-see. We may not know until September when the 2008-09 broadcast schedule is announced. My guess is that it will still be two hours on Sunday with the Ladies skating live.

4 and 5. once again, wait and see.

TPTB may not even know yet. the 2007-08 season has just concluded. There is a five-month layoff until they even start thinking about next season.

 

[Mathman]

As for heavyweight champion of the world, which another poster mentioned......this was never shown on regular TV....these matches were always on pay per view and they continue to be on pay per view.

I am showing my age now, but actually the history of boxing on TV is kind of interesting.

Boxing was big on television in the late fifties and early sixties. The Friday Night Fights (you're truly an old codger if you remember the Gillette jingle that began, "To look sharp... ) Every week there was a big show featuring some sort of championship or major bout between contenders. Later on there was the Wednesday Night Fights as well.

However, this proved disastrous for the boxing industry. Why should anyone pay to see a boxing match at Madison Square Garden when they could stay home and watch it for free? In particular, this cut into money available for programs to develop young fighters, because all the TV money went to the same few guys at the top and there was no interest in the undercard.

So by the time Muhammad Ali came along in the 1960s, the boxing establishment stopped letting netwiork TV have their fights, and instead went to closed circuit TV. You could go to the event live, or you could go to a sports bar or some such place that subscribed to the service. (IIRC pay-per-view didn't come in until the 1980s. In fact, I think the first major pay-per-view event was Sugar Ray Leonard versus Tommy Hearns in the early eighties. Hearns was robbed! )

It is still the case that most football teams black out their local viewing area if the live gate is not sold out.

 

[sillylionlove]

Thank you for correcting me Mathman.

 

[merrybari]

IIRC, analysis of the record attendance at the Spokane nationals showed that the majority of the fans were local. So maybe NBC / USFS is making a good bet that they can continue to atrract a respectable live gate while also increasing the television viewing audience.

Will be interesting to see if the bet pays off. When I was in St. Paul I know for a fact that many locals didn't even know it was going on. I sat next to a lady at the ladies SP who had found out just that same afternoon that Nationals were even in town and chose the ladies SP because her 5-yr old daughter was starting to get interested in skating.

Whether the locals show up depends on the promotion the OC does. Spokane obviously did a better job if most of those in attendance were indeed locals.

For me, depending on what's going on two years from now, I'll most likely only do one weekend - the men's. Which is a bummer because I'll then miss the EX.

It does make sense in light of the Olympics schedule tho' to give the men and pairs a better time frame. However, they would still have to either stay for the EX or come back. That could pose a problem.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

1. My assumption is that it will be similar to the way they did it in St. Paul. Stay Tuned

http://www.cleveland2009.com/index.htm

2. Posted in the Hersh article above

3. This is a wait-and-see. We may not know until September when the 2008-09 broadcast schedule is announced. My guess is that it will still be two hours on Sunday with the Ladies skating live.

4 and 5. once again, wait and see.

TPTB may not even know yet. the 2007-08 season has just concluded. There is a five-month layoff until they even start thinking about next season.

Assumpions are not speculations????

I've been saying Wait and See, way back on this thead and others long before this whole thing came about. I didn't jump for joy as so many did when the news of NBC was taking over Figure Skating with the outgoing ABC/ESPN. What we did find out later about the limited coverage of NBC had those same joy jumpers changing their tune Yet we continue to get the same old speculations Wait and See advice is not at all new advice. I was hoping someone had real information. No one seems to know more, even the big speculators are waiting and seeing as they should have from the beginning.

Cleveland will be NBC's first Nationals. If it is just like ABC/ESPNs then it is not a jump for joy special and in 2008 repeat 2008 someone knows what it is with the Skate America 2008. NBC did a very limited 2007 SA.

Also when we have nothing else to offer, we can go on about other sports which is liking to it's time to conclude this topic and the questions. No one knows and Hersch too, I believe is speculating. Am I correct?

 

[Tonichelle]

Joe - why don't you try emailing NBC directly for more concrete answers if you really need to know, or email the cleveland officials that are running nationals.... that would be better than sitting on this thread which, as you say, is full of speculation. It might be easier.

Mathman and Red Dog have great points, using the 'historical' facts of how television sports runs and all is not just pulling random guesses out of the air. As for Hersch - he pretty much has an inside track in all of this so his speculation is probably a lot closer to the truth than anything else you're going to get. I would think that he is reading the NBC press releases that are sent out to anyone who wants them - and that would be a journalist covering sports.

So I would advise to just email Cleveland and/or NBC and see what you get out of them. The worst they can do is not respond.

 

[R.D.]

...and there is a good chance they don't even know at this point...

 

[Mathman]

Cleveland will be NBC's first Nationals.

Last year in St. Paul was NBC's first Nationals.

Regarding the 2008 TV schedule, here is the official announcement direct from the USFS web site.

http://www.usfsa.org/Event_TV_Schedule.asp

On the other hand, the wording of the official announcement last year

http://www.usfsa.org/event_story.asp?id=38462

makes it seem like they had in mind similar coverege for U.S. Nationals, and also for Skate America, in the 2008-2009 season as they did last year.

The fact that they are now announcing a new format for 2010 Nationals, together with the ISU's decision to switch around the Grand Prix events, to me is acknowledgement that the proposed changes of coverage will go into effect for the Olympic season, leaving the 2008-09 contract pretty much the same as last year.

But you never know. They might surprise us.

 

[Tonichelle]

...and there is a good chance they don't even know at this point...

they will at least know if the event is going to be the same format as years past or a different format... and they should, by now, know which event will take place on which day... the only thing that got switched in St. Paul was either a Junior or Novice event and that was because the men's event was late at night for the Short program and very early the following morning for the LP and there just wasn't enough rest time in between for the kids (I think it was Novice)

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

WOW, the three of you after me.

The intent of the my thread was to shed light on the forthcoming Skate America followd by the forthcoming Cleveland Nats. I can not believe the ISU is going to allow NBC to dominate their games so Worlds 2010 will not split up.

From the responses, I do not see anyone who knows anything more than I do except for speculations. No problem. We all have them. So I listed the points of what we should be looking for and hoping someone would get word on any or all of them:

2008 Skate America - Everett, Wash. and when? how much TV will there be?

2009 US Nats in Cleveland - Is the new format to be used (2 weekends)?

2009 Skate America - Too early to wonder

2010 Nats - where and when? too early to expect any news. 2 weekends?

2010 Worlds in LA - Opinion here. I doubt ISU will let them be done in 2 weekends.

2010 Olys in Vancouver - this is NBC's big event. Only Cinquanta will care.

2010 Words in Torino - I don't think NBC will be around for that.

The above listing is just to be perused and if anyone can put in positive information where needed - great It really doesn't need speculation. There is plenty of that already.

MM sorry about my incomplete sentence. I should have written that Cleveland may be the first 2 weekend format.

Toni - Can you let me know what were the historical facts about broadcasting.

Joe

to save space some further thoughts:

You should understand that in many of the above venues, I do not care about the TV showing. I only speak of it for others who do care about it. I will be either at the Arena or watching it all including Novice and Juniors on IceNetwork.

Joe

 

[Mathman]

2009 US Nats in Cleveland - Is the new format to be used (2 weekends)?

Joe, sorry if it seemed like I was trying to gang up on you. The point I was trying to make, however clumsily, was this.

The original announcement of the contract between NBC and USFS detailed the format and the amount of coverage that NBC would give to Skate America and to U.S. Nationals. In the 2007-08 season they did what they said they were going to do.

Now they are making a big whoop-de-do about changes that they are going to inaugurate in the 2009-2010 season. Nothing about any changes in broadcast plans for 2008-09. Those are all the facts that are available at the moment.

Here is the official USFS web page for the Cleveland Nationals.

http://www.usfigureskating.org/event_details.asp?id=37784

As you can see, the event is scheduled for Sunday, January 18 to Sunday, January 25th -- one week.

Edited to add. Here is the skating schedule for Skate America (Everett).

http://www.usfigureskating.org/event_details.asp?id=39830

Thursday, Oct. 23
Fan Fest Opens
**Practice Ice 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Friday, Oct. 24
Practice Ice 8:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Session #1 Compulsory Dance 3:00 p.m.
Session #2 Pairs Short Program; Men's Short Program 7:00 p.m.

Saturday, Oct. 25th
Session #3 Original Dance; Pairs Free Skate 2:00 p.m.
Session #4 Ladies Short program; Men’s Free Skate 7:00 p.m.

Sunday, Oct. 26th
Session #5 Free Dance; Ladies Free Skate 11:00 a.m.
Session #6 Skating Spectacular - Exhibition of Champions 5 p.m.

The official site does not say which events will be televised. The ladies free skate would be going on some time in the afternoon on Sunday (EST).

 

[R.D.]

Looking at that schedule, it seems like it will be the same 2-hr. truncated Sun. afternoon coverage we saw last year. The schedule as it stands does not favor a Saturday afternoon broadcast (although they could flip things around).