Now that the Olympics are over-they are over, aren’t they?-it’s time for something completely different. It’s time for the ESPYs, the American Sports Awards presented by ESPN at 8 p.m. Monday.
“A production like this for us is like a Super Bowl night without a regular season or a playoff,” says ESPN Executive Editor John Walsh. “What strikes me about this second year is both the entertainment and athletic communities understand what we accomplished last year. We saw much more recognition this year from the entertainment community.”
Despite the return of Dennis Miller as host and Bill Murray as one of the performers, Walsh cites major changes in personnel for the “roller-coaster ride” the preparations took.
“All the celebrity presenters (including Olympian Dan Jansen) are different,” Walsh says. “We have new musical acts. We have a new producer and new writers.”
Former MTV producer Joel Gallen, whose most recent production was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, will produce the ESPY telecast this year. David Letterman, Janine Turner, Joe Pesci and Murray are presenters.
“The idea is to make these shows different from year to year,” says Walsh, “so there are some surprises.”
With Miller as host, there are always surprises. “The nice thing about awards shows is that you can’t really script them out too much,” says Miller. “Many of the big laughs I got last year happened on the spur of the moment. I’m looking forward to the unpredictability of the evening.”
The Bulls (outstanding team of the year), Michael Jordan (NBA performer of the year) and Frank Thomas (baseball performer of the year) are the Chicago nominees.
Still watching: CBS all but assured itself of the highest-rated prime-time Olympics telecasts Saturday with a 22.7 preliminary national rating and a 38 share. Those figures, up 41 percent over the third Saturday night in Albertville two years ago, gave the network a 15-night average rating of 28.1 with a 42 share. Not only was that 47 percent higher than the first 15 nights in ’92, but it topped the 24.4 rating and 44 share ABC got for the 1972 Summer Games, which had been the previous best. In Chicago, Saturday night’s telecast had a 24.7 rating with a 38 share between 7 and 10 p.m on WBBM-Ch. 2.
Olympian fallout: Friday night’s ratings, expected to outdo Wednesday night’s record audience, not only slipped nationally but locally as well despite the massive snowstorm. Channel 2 had a 49.2 rating with a 63 share, down slightly from Wednesday night’s 51.3 rating, 63 share. A local Nielsen rating point represents 31,000 TV households; shares are percentage of sets in use.
Back to the future: Since CBS has begun planning for the ’98 Winter Games, here are some suggestions:
– Keep the venue anchors-especially Al Trautwig, whose mix of nordic skiing features and coverage were one of the Lillehammer highlights.
– Get rid of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, whose ego is as big as he is.
– Drop the too-cutesy morning show, a waste of time for Paula, Harry and Mark as well as for the viewers who were seeking event coverage.
– Cut Pat O’Brien’s late-night show back to 30 minutes to eliminate those annoying George Steinbrenner-Donald Trump-Marla Maples type interviews.
– Try some of the techno-gimmicks again. The camera work on some of the skiingevents was superb.
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– More off-the-wall Bill Geist and Mark Phillips features.
– And bring back Greg Gumbel, Jim Nantz and Andrea Joyce, the perfect hosts/traffic cops.
On the whole, the Lillehammer programswere better-looking and faster-paced than Albertville’s.
Programming notes: SportsChannel has added two White Sox spring training telecasts, starting with the opener at noon Friday. Other spring airings: noon March 13 and noon March 27. . . . Dan Jiggetts and Mike North take their WSCR-AM midday show to Sox camp in Sarasota, Fla., Tuesday and Wednesday. . . . John Madden makes his Fox Network debut Monday as host of “Rise and Walk: The Dennis Byrd Story” at 7 p.m. on WFLD-Ch. 32. “This is the first example of how we intend to treat the NFL players, as well as our on-air broadcast team, as television stars,” said Fox Executive Vice President Tracy Dolgin. . . . “Sports Radio Nightly,” a daily five-hour amalgamation of local and syndicated programming previously heard on WVVX-FM, moves to WCBR-FM starting at midnight Monday. In addition, Bob Greenberg and other “Sports Radio Nightly” personalities will originate three hours of Sunday shows on The Bear.