Category: Television

They Killed Kenny Williams and Land-o-Links for 12/8/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, DePaul Blue Demons, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, Movies, NFL Football, Sports, Television1 Comment

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Due to time constraints, Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week will go on a brief hiatus until after the holidays. In the meantime, though, here are some links to warm you up:

(1) Thoughts on ’07 and Beyond: Defending Kenny Williams (Chi-Sox Blog) – Jeeves has a spirited defense of the moves that Kenny Williams and the White Sox have been making or planning to make this offseason. It might very well turn out that the Freddy Garcia trade to the Phillies will work out in the long-term. However, what concerns me as a White Sox fan in general is that just when it seemed as though the organization was turning the corner to spend the resources that would befit a team that is located in the nation’s third-largest media market, Jerry Reinsdorf seems to be reverting back to the notion that his club is really the equivalent of a small-market franchise and must reign in spending accordingly. Not too long ago, I argued that Reinsdorf was one of the best owners in sports and couldn’t really have been blamed for not spending frivolously in the manner of George Steinbrenner or Tom Hicks. However, when the Sox ended up selling out a majority of their games in 2006 along with gaining increased income from its partial stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago, it’s tough to justify the team pinching pennies again.

(2) At Rams’ Field, Two Sponsors For One Night Only (Wall Street Journal) – Naming rights are so nice, let’s do it twice!

(3) Rental Turf War Escalates (Chicagoist) – This is what passes for gang warfare in Lakeview.

(4) Valet Confidential (Chicago Tribune) – Where your car ends up when you hand the keys over to the valet in the city.

(5) Can Someone Put a Leash on Gumbel? (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) – As one of the five people in the country that actually receives the NFL Network, I have to agree with poker commentator extraordinaire Norman Chad on the terror known as Bryant Gumbel’s announcing skills.  It’s a shame that Cris Collinsworth, who I believe is the best football color man in the industry, has to be paired with such an abomination.  This is also disappointing since I’ve been a fan of pretty much everything else that the NFL Network has done this year, including Sunday highlight shows that are vastly superior to the offerings from ESPN and the other networks.  With the use of the guy that looks like Malcom X compared to Wayne Brady, I almost (heavy emphasis on the almost) want to hear Joe Buck’s voice again.

(6) The DePaul/Illini Connection (Fleece the Pig, Flog the Pony) – As an alum of both of these schools, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

(7) Rex Grossman Eats Tainted Pork? (Critical Sports Blog) – Rex might need to lay off of the Taco Bell.

And finally…

(8) What We Thought Was Cool… (Chronically Insane) – A true blast from the past from Chronically Insane about a film that I hadn’t thought about in years.

Land-o-Links – 11/29/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, TelevisionLeave a comment

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I’ll eventually get back to writing some full-fledged substantive posts once I have some time, but you’ll at least see a return of Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week tomorrow. Until then, enjoy these links:

(1) Does Cubs’ New Star Have a Message from the Tribune? (New York Times) – With daily speculation about the Tribune Company breaking up its media conglomeration, a lot of people seem to believe that the recent spending spree by the Cubs is an indicator that the corporation wants to sell off the team since the club has had a reputation of being tightwads relative to its wealth. However, as Andrew Ross Sorkin (no relation to the TV producer Aaron, who I’ll be addressing separately on a completely different subject below) notes, this is completely counterintuitive in the business world and, specifically, the private equity world that the Tribune is probably heading into, where cutting expenses is paramount. If anything, the increased spending by the Cubs makes it less likely that the Tribune is going to part ways with the franchise (at least in terms of selling it off by itself without coupling it with other assets). My feeling is that while the newspaper operations of the Tribune, which are the source of the earnings pressure, will be split off in some fashion, the synergy of the Cubs, WGN Television, WGN Radio, and the partial stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago is too lucrative and valuable as a whole to break apart into separate pieces.

(2) Critic Loses Giddiness for NBC’s Show ‘Studio 60’ (Chicago Tribune) – This article encapsulates my love-hate relationship with Aaron Sorkin. When “The West Wing” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” have been focused on the insider baseball workings of the respective subjects of politics and the entertainment industry, they have been among the most well-written and fascinating pieces of dramatic television anywhere. However, it seems as though Sorkin just can’t resist the opportunity to hammer the viewers over the head with his personal political views, which regardless of whether one agrees with him, are delivered in such a heavy-handed and preachy manner that he destroys the quality of his shows. Case in point is the example that Maureen Ryan refers to in her article, where Sorkin intimated in a recent “Studio 60” episode that there are people who can live for 50 or more years in that supposed “backwater town” of Columbus, Ohio (despite the fact that it is home to the largest university in the United States, the state capital of the 7th largest state in the country, and a burgeoning “creative class”, the city’s mere location in the Midwest clearly indicates to Sorkin that its population must be full of rubes) and never hear of Laurel and Hardy. (Note: This could very well be the only time that I will ever defend anything from Ohio on this blog, but it’s deserved on this point.) I’ve gone over before how much I oppose the social conservative agenda, yet comments such as these continue to give credence to the charges that Hollywood is full of liberal elites.

(3) Guard Play Awful; Work To Be Done (Mark Tupper Weblog) – Two years ago, the embarrassment of riches in the Illini backcourt with current NBA-ballers Deron Williams (who’s playing incredibly well this season for the Jazz so far), Luther Head, and Dee Brown catapulted the team to the national championship game. Now, it appears as if though Illinois is going to be shuffling around guards until Demetri McCamey arrives in Champaign next season. Granted, I knew there would be a number of painful evenings with the departures of Dee and James Augustine this year, but being able to watch the new team last night for the first time made me realize that we have a huge deficit in terms of being able to produce on the offensive end of the floor. It’s going to be even tougher this weekend on the road in Phoenix against an Arizona team that I believe can go the distance.

(4) Miracle Drug (Ron Karkovice Fan Club) – The Bulls’ back-to-back games against the Knicks couldn’t have come soon enough with all of the Ben Wallace headband wackiness. Once again, I give thanks to Isiah Thomas, the greatest GM in Bulls history.

(5) Crede Tale All About Cash and Dash (Chicago Tribune) – If the White Sox want to move its pillar at third base in Joe Crede as part of blockbuster package to bail Alex Rodriguez out of New York, that’s one thing. However, Crede for Chone Figgins isn’t going to make my heart flutter.

(6) Bears Road to the Playoffs (Windy City Gridiron) – As the Chicago media has commenced the inevitable frothing at the mouth to yank Rex Grossman for Brian Griese, the larger picture is that the Bears are still in command to secure homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. On a related note, notwithstanding the excellent play so far of Eastern Illinois alum and Jessica Simpson boy-toy Tony Romo (let’s not forget that Rex got off to a similarly hot start this year before NFL teams got enough video of him to pick him apart), my feeling is that the Cowboys are paper tigers on a hot streak that they cannot maintain and aren’t a long-term threat. The one real NFC challenger in my eyes is Seattle with a healthy tandem of Matt Hasselback and Shaun Alexander back in the fold. I don’t want a Seahawks version of last season when the Bears destroyed the Panthers during the regular season only to get subsequently smoked by Steve Smith at Soldier Field in the postseason.

And finally…

(7) Snoop Dogg Arrested, Again (Washington Post) – I thought it was standard operating procedure to carry your piece onto the Tonight Show.

(Image from Fall TV Preview)

No Beer and No TV Make Frank the Tank Go Something Something

On By Frank the TankIn Random Thoughts, Television2 Comments

I know that the Ben Wallace Era and the NBA season start tonight, but I’ve been slacking off too much to get in my Bulls/NBA preview on time. Don’t despair, though; I’ll have it later this week. Until then, enjoy “The Shinning”, which I consider to be the best clip out of any of”The Simpsons” Halloween episodes. Have fun trick-or-treating and GO BULLS!

Your New Mission: Save ‘Friday Night Lights’

On By Frank the TankIn Television5 Comments

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For the most part, I think the American public is a lot savvier and smarter than what Hollywood gives them credit for. I believe that most people are craving for deep story lines that challenge viewers in terms of their emotions as opposed to just going for the easy feel-good ending. However, when I see that a show as nuanced and gripping as ‘Friday Night Lights’ is struggling to find an audience, I start to understand why Hollywood goes for the lowest common denominator.

Cindy had some interesting concerns before this show aired about whether this would inappropriately glorify high school sports at the expense of other important educational issues, but after viewing the first two episodes of the show, I believe that it’s as dark and upfront as H.G. Bissinger’s classic book about the obsession of a small Texas town that is both ridiculously misplaced and spiritually uplifting at the same time. The show is a lot less about football and much more about the triumphs and problems of society weaved through a coach, his family and players, and the town that they live in. It amazes me that the television show that is almost universally lauded by the critics as the top new program of this season is getting trounced in the ratings by ‘Dancing With The Stars’ (which I’ll admit isn’t even really a bad show, but everyone ought to be horrified of the prospect that the vein on Joey Lawrence’s Kojak-style head is going to pop out through the TV screen).

I’m the type of person that has the television attention span of a gnat (while I probably watch as much TV as anyone, I can count on one hand the number of shows that I make the commitment to watching every week), yet ‘Friday Night Lights’ has already made it to my must-see list. I don’t ask for much, but please check out ‘Friday Night Lights’ on Tuesday if you haven’t already regardless of whether you even care about football in general – you’ll be thankful.

(Image from Sports Illustrated)

Beaming Up the Big Ten Channel

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Sports, Television5 Comments

As I noted yesterday, the Big Ten has entered into a deal with Fox and DirecTV to launch the Big Ten Channel in August 2007. After reviewing the details of this network coupled with the conference's new agreement with ABC/ESPN (which in and of itself also improved the conference's exposure), I believe the Big Ten has made a great deal both financially for its member institutions and in terms of exposure for its fans across the nation.The key element of this deal, from my perspective, is that DirecTV is going to be carrying the channel nationally on its Total Choice tier (the equivalent of basic cable) as opposed to the premium sports tier (which subscribers need to pay extra for a la HBO or Showtime). That means every DirecTV subscriber in the country will receive the network. Considering that NBA TV, ESPNU, and CSTV are all on the premium sports tier, this new deal is indicative of how powerful the Big Ten Conference is on its own.

How does this change things for the average Big Ten fan? The largest item is that there will no longer be the syndicated ESPN Plus package for football and basketball games on local television stations – all of those games will be moved to the new Big Ten Channel. There are some pluses and minuses to this. On the positive end, all of those previously locally televised games will become national telecasts with, at the very least, respect to DirecTV.

The potential problems stem from the prospect of the Big Ten Channel first, not having those games available to those that do not have cable and second, for those without DirecTV, not being able to get onto basic cable in, at minimum, its home team markets in the Midwest and Northeast. For instance, if the Big Ten Channel isn't able to get onto the basic tier of service on Comcast Cable in Chicago, Illinois fans and other Big Ten alums in the Windy City will be shut out from a significant portion of their teams' telecasts. I'm a DirecTV subscriber (and I absolutely recommend it 110% over Comcast – if at all possible, get the dish) so it won't affect me personally, but it will not be a positive change if the average Big Ten fan either has no access or has to pay extra for access to games that were previously provided for free over-the-air. Getting onto the basic cable systems in the Big Ten home media markets is essential (any carriage outside of that would be gravy).

The network is a significantly positive development for the fans living outside of their favorite team's home market since those that are DirecTV subscribers will get access to games that they previously had to pay extra for on ESPN Full Court. Thus, this won't only benefit the Illini fan living in Florida, but also the Ohio State fan living in the heart of Big Ten Country in Chicago or Indianapolis. This also means that I'll be able to watch every single Big Ten football and basketball game from the comforts of my leather sofa, which means that I'm probably not going to be moving away from my television much from September through March. (Note: my appetite for Big Ten sports is so insatiable that I end up watching most Northwestern games, who play something that vaguely resembles basketball, just to tide me over between Illini games and other big conference matchups).

With all of the hub-bub regarding the new network, it's easy to forget that the Big Ten also significantly improved their deal with ABC/ESPN, with every ABC regional football game being broadcast nationally on one of the ESPN networks in the markets where the ABC affiliate isn't showing the Big Ten game along with more basketball telecasts on ESPN with a new nationally televised Thursday night game that's in addition to Super Tuesday (hooray for more games not involving Duke or UNC). That means that the Big Ten has increased the number of nationally televised football and basketball games on both ABC and, most importantly, the worldwide leader of ESPN.

On top of all that, there's the monetary aspect of the deal. Sources from Iowa and Michigan State report that each school is expected to receive an additional $7.5 million in revenue in the first year for the Big Ten Channel alone. Keep in mind that this figure doesn't even include the Big Ten's separate contracts with ABC/ESPN and CBS for men's basketball games (the old television contracts are expected to give the Big Ten $6.4 million in 2006, which is a number that should go up with the new ABC/ESPN contract). That means the Big Ten is looking at upwards of $14 million per year in television revenue for each school. To put this in perspective, Notre Dame, which is the standard-bearer when it comes to money and college sports, made $6.43 million per year in its deal that ended in 2004 with NBC (figures for the current Notre Dame/NBC deal are unavailable, but the annual rights fees in the contract ending in 2004 were actually lower than the first deal signed between the two entities in the 1990s). (Update: Other reports pegged the amount of the Notre Dame/NBC deal at $9 million per year).

These numbers mean two things: (1) the Big Ten has put itself into position to be the most financially dominant conference in the country, if it wasn't already and (2) expansion of the conference will almost certainly not happen unless that new member is named Notre Dame. I suggested a few months ago that if the Irish continued to balk at the prospect of joining the Big Ten, the conference ought to look at Syracuse as a potential 12th member. With this new deal, however, it will take a new member to provide upwards of $14 million per year in additional revenue just for the current schools to make the same amount of money with 12 teams as they had with 11 teams. Even with additional money from the creation of a Big Ten football championship game, I doubt that anyone other than Notre Dame could possibly provide the additional revenue that would make expansion worth it for the conference.

There are certainly risks from taking content that networks would surely pay a lot of money for in-house, but the Big Ten is the one conference that overcome such negative prospects. The Big Ten's home base of markets that includes Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia is the largest and strongest out of any other conference while its alums are spread widely from the Michigan and Penn State grads on the East Coast to the Illinois and Wisconsin expats in the Sun Belt and West Coast. All in all, this looks to be a great deal for the Big Ten and reaffirms it as the preeminent conference in college sports.

Other thoughts from across the nation on the Big Ten Channel:

1) A Look at the Big Ten Channel (IlliniBoard)

2) Big Ten Network is Set Up with Fox (New York Times)

3) Big Ten Gambles on TV Channel (Chicago Tribune)

4) A Big Ten Channel Would Be A Big Boon (Sporting News)

5) Will Cable Outlets View Big Ten Channel as Must-Carry TV? (Capital Times)

6) Big Ten Creates its Own Network (SportsBiz)

And finally…

7) Big Ten Network Unfortunately to Include Northwestern, Purdue and Minnesota Games (Sports Pickle)

Non-Stop TV Seasons Need to be Adopted Everywhere

On By Frank the TankIn Pop Culture, Random Thoughts, Television2 Comments

There have been two things annoying me over the past week.  The first is the performance of my fantasy baseball team, where I'm about a couple days away from having my pitching staff massacred Steinbrenner-style.  I'll spare you the details – I could seriously write three or four posts per day devoted to my fantasy baseball and football exploits, but my total readership would plummet from five to two.

The other item driving me bonkers is a bit more universal: reruns upon reruns upon reruns.  Even more infuriating is ABC's practice of promoting "new episodes" of "Lost", "Desperate Housewives", and "Grey's Anatomy" that are just a bunch of clips of previous shows (I wouldn't need to "catch-up" on what the people on the "Lost" island have been doing if you'd show a new show more often than once a freakin' month).  All of this is predicated upon the idiotic time-worn belief of television executives that the American public only wants to watch new TV episodes during November, February, and May.

The aforementioned months are "sweeps" months, which are when Nielsen conducts its most thorough measurements of who is watching television (note: July is also considered a sweeps month, but networks rarely air new episodes of its hit shows during that time).  The TV networks then rely on this information to set new advertising rates for its programs.  As a result, the networks hold back a disproportionate amount of their new and best shows for those three periods a year while the rest of the time is hit or miss (you also know it's sweeps month when your local news has a "special investigation" into how the latest popular toy/kitchen gadget/something in your home/something in your car/something in fast-food restaurants kills babies).

The one over-the-air network that has mercifully stepped out of this ridiculous cycle (several cable networks such as MTV and FX have already been doing this for years) is Fox.  Viewers receive five straight months of shows such as "24" and "American Idol" without interruption.  Not surprisingly, Fox, which once upon a time was the butt of countless UHF jokes, will almost certainly end up winning the coveted age 18-49 category in the ratings by the end of May (advertisers care about this number much more than overall total ratings because of the group's spending power).

Like many things in life, Fox's move wasn't born out of brilliance but rather necessity.  Fox airs Major League Baseball's postseason every year in October, which means it needs to shelve new episodes of shows that would normally be aired during that time.  This caused a huge number of problems in the first years that Fox had baseball since the game conflicts came only a couple of weeks after the networks started their traditional fall television season.  In order to adapt, Fox went to the equivalent of a multiple season format, where the network airs a block of programs from the beginning of summer through the end of September, have a different schedule for October through December, and then a third slate of programs from January through May.

What initially was a disruption from baseball that was difficult to recover from for the rest of the year turned into the catalyst for Fox's ratings success.  The network stumbled upon something that should have been obvious but no one else had bothered to consider: people enjoy watching new episodes of their favorite shows every week without stopping as opposed to having a season stretch out for nine months.  This is especially true of dramas that have rolling storylines and plots.  One of my favorite shows is "Lost", yet it is maddening when I have to wait a month to get a resolution to a cliffhanger.  "24", on the other hand, rolls on straight through from January through May without impediment, which, for me, heightens the anticipation and intensity for each subsequent episode.

Judging by the way the ratings have gone the past couple of years, the public seems to agree with me.  It would behoove the other networks to follow Fox's lead and break out of a television season cycle that should have been abandoned a long time ago.  People are a lot smarter than considering a bunch of clips to be a "new" episode.

Additional Article of Note:

A New Yorker article on sweeps from 2003 goes into how the sunken costs of the current Nielsen system and the interests of affiliates are severe roadblocks to getting the sweeps cycle changed.

Bucky, the Pink Line, Kelvin, and the Final Four

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, Music, Pop Culture, Random Thoughts, Sports, Television2 Comments

Some random thoughts for your Final Four weekend:

1) Bucky Survives and Advances – Forget about Presidential elections. What terrifies me about the voting patterns of the Red States is that Bucky Covington could very well be our next American Idol. If you've watched this season at all and have any discernible taste in music (or just an appreciation of proper intonation), you know exactly what I'm talking about. Not only did he not finish in the bottom 3 this week, but next week everyone has to sing country songs (looks like I'll be just tuning in for the results show), which plays right into Bucky's Southern Strategy. We can't let this happen. Vote or die, people!

2) The Pink Line – I seriously thought the Chicago Tribune was pulling an early April Fool's joke on us with this morning's front page article. Unfortunately, every time I set the bar lower for the CTA, they manage to limbo right under there.

3) Kelvin Sampson Hired at IU – The only thing more surprising than the announcement of Sampson's hiring at Indiana is the tepid response of Hoosier fans. As I said before, IU fans were expecting Coach K to drop everything, move to Bloomington, and bring along Phil Jackson and Pat Riley as his assistants. Notwithstanding the ignorance of its fan base, I believe that Indiana made a great hire and he was certainly as close to the top of the coaching mountain as the school could reasonably attain.

Take this from an Illini guy who was hoping that IU would screw up and bow to nepotistic pressure to hire within the “Indiana Family” a la Steve Alford (or the gold standard of Isiah Thomas): anyone that argues that Indiana should have hired Alford over Sampson is insane. Sampson has proven he can win lots of games and recruit great talent at the basketball backwaters of Pullman and Norman. It's interesting to note that the Hoosier fans that are most critical of the baggage regarding Sampson's calls to recruits are pretty much the same people that vehemently defended a coach that choked his players. Seems just a little bit hypocritical for them to pull out the "integrity" card, no?

All in all, Kelvin Sampson is a great fit for Indiana and is going to provide some tough competition on the floor and on the recruiting trails in the Big Ten. Indiana fans ought to thank their lucky stars they got this good of a coach.

4) Final Four Predictions – I'm not betting against George Mason anymore – I'm a believer. So, I'm going with George Mason over Florida and UCLA over LSU in the semifinals.

Have a great weekend!

My Beef with the WB

On By Frank the TankIn Business, Pop Culture, TelevisionLeave a comment

With apologies to my readers that are fans of its shows, but I’m perversely gleeful about the problems and shake-ups at the WB Network.  My beef with the network is pretty simple and hard-headed: when the WB was launched in 1995, its Chicago affiliate WGN had to cut the number of the station’s Cubs and White Sox baseball telecasts in half in order to make room for inane shows by the Wayans brothers.

For most of Western Civilization and the developed world, this wasn’t a problem because they could simply switch the approriate cable television channel to watch those games.  However, at the time of the WB launch, I lived in a mud hut with parents who to this day have never paid a dime in their lives for cable.  If you don’t know me already, you’ll find out soon enough that I am a baseball freak, so after being accustomed to watching baseball on a daily basis for seriously as long as I could remember watching TV, finding an episode of “Sister, Sister” on WGN rather than a meaningless mid-September Sox-Royals game spurred me to initiate a personal boycott.  Even though I now have a DirecTV account that gives me access to hundreds of more baseball games than I could ever possibly watch, I still can’t evaluate any show on the WB objectively because of this deep-seeded bias against anything that appears on the network.

Of course, since the WB has banked its entire existence on attracting an audience of teenage girls (not my biased words – that’s the linked New York Times article’s analysis), it hasn’t been hard for me to avoid its shows.  I’m glad the WB’s executives paid $100,000 for their Ivy League MBAs and blew literally hundreds of millions of dollars in television production costs before figuring out that (surprise!) teenage girls are a pretty fickle audience, meaning that they had a shaky foundation for an over-the-air TV network.  I could have told them that when I was a high school kid who just wanted to watch some baseball in 1995.