The Great Figure Skating War takes to the airwaves Saturday with four-count ’em, four-programs, two of them going head-to-head in prime time. Two others-highlights from the U.S. championships on ABC and the European championships on NBC-go head-to-head in the afternoon.
“It’s entertainment,” says ABC Sports programming executive Lydia Stephans. “It transcends sports. It’s not your typical sports audience sitting there on a Saturday evening watching a competition.”
“An Evening with Nancy Kerrigan,” with the assistance of old pal Paul Wylie, attempts to show the world-and all those Olympic judges-she has shaken off the effects of last month’s assault on her knee. CBS airs the exhibition on tape Saturday night.
Network officials say this doesn’t present a conflict of interest even though CBS, which televises the Winter Olympics, could be seen favoring one competitor over the others. Greg Gumbel, CBS’ prime-time host in Lillehammer, interviews Kerrigan, who says all the controversy swirling around her and Tonya Harding is “very hard to ignore. It’s kind of like reading a book-you want to get to the end.”
With this little boost from Kerrigan, however, CBS probably wins, ratings-wise, whether Harding shows up in Lillehammer or not. Millions of viewers probably will tune in Feb. 23 just to watch Kerrigan, American’s Newest Sweetheart, whether Harding, the Biker Chick from Hell, is there or in jail.
In the meantime, ABC brings together some oldies but goodies-like Robin Cousins and, in a rare performance, Peggy Fleming-for “Skates of Gold” at 7 p.m. Saturday, preferring to focus on the glitzy past rather than the seedy present. But even that show was tinged by controversy when the U.S. Olympic Committee sued over copyright infringement.
“Once they saw what the show was all about, they dropped the suit,” said Stephans. “It’s strictly exhibition performances by former Olympic gold medalists. Let’s put it into perspective. While Nancy Kerrigan may be in the spotlight now, on her best day she won-what?-a bronze medal?”
But Stephans, a former U.S. Olympic speedskater from Northbrook, is savvy enough to realize all the current controversy just adds to the potential figure-skating audience. “I don’t know how it could hurt it,” she says, “except if you’re looking at the sport in a vacuum. This is clearly an isolated incident that could happen in any sport. It’s just not something you’d ever expect to happen in the sport of figure skating.”
But CBS may get the last word, when USOC Executive Director Harvey Schiller talks to Gumbel about the figure-skating mess on “Olympic Winterfest: Countdown to Lillehammer” at 11 a.m. Sunday on WBBM-Ch. 2.
(And the mess apparently won’t end with the Olympics, as four networks have shown interest in Kerrigan and/or Harding made-for-TV movies.)
Local stuff: Olympic bronze medalist Debi Thomas, now a medical student at Northwestern, has been hired by WBBM-Ch. 2 as the station’s in-studio Winter Olympics analyst specializing in figure skating. “It’s a real coup to have Debi explain and analyze the competition,” says Channel 2 News Director Mark Toney. Thomas won’t be the only former figure skater on the Channel 2 staff, however. Reporter Janet Shamlian, who joined the station’s news staff Nov. 1, competed nationally while growing up in Park Ridge. . . . WBBM-AM sports director Dave Eanet will file daily reports from the Winter Olympics, where he’ll also be part of the CBS Radio broadcast team, concentrating on speedskating. . . . WSCR-AM will broadcast live from the Chicago Auto Show starting with the mid-day show hosted by Mike Greenberg and Dave van Dyck Saturday. WGN-AM’s “Sports Central” and host Randy Minkoff hits McCormick Place at 1 p.m. Saturday. . . . Red Mottlow joins George Castle as co-host for “Chicago Baseball Weekly” at 4 p.m. Sunday on WCBR-FM, with three outstanding White Sox center-fielders-Lance Johnson, Jim Landis and Ken Berry-as guests.
Programming note: This month’s edition of CNN’s “The Sporting Life with Jim Huber” devotes the entire half-hour program at 6:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday to the 19 teenaged Sarajevo basketball players who escaped to suburban Chicago, including a touching reaction of a couple of the players’ mothers seeing their sons for the first time since their disappearance.
Programming change: ESPN will expand “SportsCenter” hours beginning April 3, while four commentators will have new assignments. “SportsCenter” adds three more one-hour shows at 10 p.m., and the early-evening program will also become 60 minutes long, starting at 5:30 p.m. Keith Olbermann moves from “SportsNight” on ESPN2 to reunite with Dan Patrick on the late-night “SportsCenter,” Stuart Scott replaces Olbermann as co-anchor on “SportsNight,” Chris Berman increases his hosting duties on “Baseball Tonight” (which expands to two half-hour shows nightly) and Chris Myers joins Berman and Gary Miller as a “Baseball Tonight” host.
Going Ryding: USA Network, which airs the first two rounds of this weekend’s Pebble Beach National Pro-Am as the first of its 11 golf events this year, has reached agreement with NBC to air the first round of the 1995 and ’97 Ryder Cup matches. Late last year, NBC had purchased exclusive cable and network rights to the ’95 and ’97 matches from the PGA of America with the ratings success of the ’93 matches fresh on its minds. Despite the early-morning hours of the Sunday round, NBC’s two-day average for the ’93 coverage was a 3.8 rating with a 12 share, up 52 percent over 1991.
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