A record audience for curling; “journalism” at Fan590
December 14, 2009 · 31 Comments
The men’s Olympic qualifying curling final produced a record for TSN. An average of 1.213 million viewers watched Kevin Martin defeat Glenn Howard on Sunday afternoon.
It was TSN’s best curling audience ever and it almost doubled viewership of 693,000 for the 2005 men’s Olympic qualifier. (All live sports audiences are way up this year because of the new, more accurate Portable People Meter system of measurement.)
The men’s final wasn’t a great game. Martin was in control almost from the start. The women’s final on Saturday night, which was decided by the last rock, was a more interesting contest. But, in terms of audience numbers, it had competition from the CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada.
Still, 832,000 viewers tuned in to watch Cheryl Bernard defeat Shannon Kleibrink. That audience was 49 per cent larger than the 2005 viewership for the 2005 women’s final.
The curling telecasts were well produced. Some of the jargon used by analysts Linda Moore and Ray Turnbull would have slid over the head of the casual fan, and that’s something for TSN to keep in mind during the Olympic tournament when a great many casual fans will be tuned into curling.
The production values were first-rate. The telestrator is always helpful. The rock count graphic gives us relevant information. And, of course, the miked competitors makes curling unique among all sports.
The one thing that wasn’t shown during the men’s final, or I missed, was video of the alleged cheating incident earlier in the tournament by Martin’s lead, Ben Hebert, against Howard’s rink.
More curling numbers: Men’s semi-final, Saturday afternoon, 843,000; women’s semi-final, Friday night, 729,000; men’s final pre-game show, 415,000; women’s pre-game, 406,000.
Weekend audiences
Hockey:
Hockey Night In Canada pre-game, Saturday, 641,000.
Hockey Night game telecast, Washington Capitals-Toronto Maple Leafs, plus Carolina-Ottawa and Montreal-Atlanta, 1.758 million; 10 p.m. ET game, Minnesota-Vancouver, 818,000.
Regional hockey: Edmonton Oilers-St. Louis Blues, Friday, Sportsnet West, 136,000; Calgary Flames-Colorado Avalanche, Sunday, Sportsnet West, 229,000.
Football:
NFL 1 p.m. regionals, Sunday, CTV, 802,000.
NFL 4 p.m. regionals, Sportsnet, 161,000; City-TV, 585,000.
NFL Sunday night, Philadelphia Eagles-New York Giants, TSN, 566,000.
Soccer:
Bolton-Manchester City, Saturday morning, Sportsnet, 143,000.
Alpine skiing:
Women’s giant slalom, GMC Alpine Ski Series, Saturday, CBC, 114,000
Men’s Super G, Ski Series, Saturday, CBC, 188,000.
Sliding sports:
World Cup bobsleigh/skeleton, Saturday, CBC, 153,000.
Journalism at Fan590
The position filled at Rogers Sportsnet by Fan590 general manager Nelson Millman requires a strong understanding of journalism. It involves running the news operation and other studio productions such as Nick Kypreos’s interview a few weeks ago with the troubled hockey player Mike Danton.
Is Millman, who continues to run the Fan590, up to the job at Sportsnet? We’ll see. He doesn’t have any experience in television, but that hardly makes him unique at Sportsnet. He reports to a vice-president, Dave Akande, whose background is in law, not TV.
As for Millman’s knowledge of journalism, the guess here is he doesn’t have a clue, aside from what he knows about producing a quicky sportscast for radio. Consider the sort of journalism that Millman’s Fan590 produces:
Last week, afternoon drive host Bob McCown conducted an “interview” lasting several minutes with Jordan Bitove, the president of Vision Co. It was about Molson Canadian Hockey House at the Vancouver Olympics, a joint project by Vision and Molson. (Purely by coincidence McCown’s radio show will be based at Molson house during the Games.)
After Bitove waxed eloquent about the facility, McCown asked: “Can anybody go to Molson Hockey House?”
“It’s for celebrities, athletes, entertainers, corporate partners and fans,” Bitove said. “It’s a place to party under one roof, created for the athletes and their families to hang out . . . The IOC is a partner and people want to have fun. . . .
“This will be the biggest party in Vancouver with world-class entertainment . . . It will be a place where people can get together and let their hair down.”
After that promo came the kicker: “We have a VIP opportunity for the public to buy into.”
Now, McCown could have asked the price of this “VIP opportunity” and perhaps even opined that, given this is an IOC branded enterprise, it will be expensive. Instead, Bob’s response was, “This sounds terrific. Are there tickets available?”
Bitove, of course, knocked that one out of the park, providing a website address and promising a big announcement this week.
We went to the website. The cheapest ticket is $450 a day. The most expensive? $8,500 for a gold pass to watch the gold medal hockey game at the House.
Anyway, regardless of what admission to Molson house costs, the Bitove piece was nothing more than an infomercial dressed up as an interview. But was Millman able to tell?
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Pinball, has been a Canadian citzen for over 2 years, please know what you are talking about before speaking
TSN often steers away from on-ice controversy – to the detriment of the sport story they are supposed to tell.
I don’t listen to McCown because I think he’s a ethical journalist along the lines of Walter Cronkite. I listen because I think he has an entertaining sports show. He’s very smart about sports business and he’s a great radio personality.
I’m not really sure why anyone would bother spending too much time scrutinizing the journalistic ethics of sports talk radio hosts. It’s clearly mostly fluff – and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not the National with Peter Mansbridge here. Most talk radio hosts will interview sponsors occasionally. I mean, have you ever listened to CFRB?
At the risk of insulting Mr. Houston (which I wouldn’t want to do because I really enjoy your work and the blog), I have to say that this seems a little like a ‘tit for tat’ move. Millman slagged you on air a week or two ago, which I thought was pretty classless. And now you are writing an article questioning his competence and the station’s integrity.
Granted, that may be totally coincidental, but I think it’s worth mentioning.
With all due respect, McCown’s takes himself and his show very seriously. His content is sports business and sports issues, so in a sense, he should be more responsible. It is not “fluff”. He is extremely thin-skinned and McCown’s act has landed him in hot water before – and he and Damien Cox were talking about getting sued last week — and laughing about how long the lawsuit was taking to get to trial. If I were Rogers, I wouldn’t be too happy about the legal bills, which I am sure have piled up over the past 8 years. Hard to believe that Cox and McCown are getting away with that sort of thing. Pretty irresponsible.
I fully agree with Pat Rosen. Today Bob went off that someone pointed out that he was American, which is the truth. I for one, find it terribly irresponsible, and quite immature, how he continues to slag Canadian politicians and in particular the Canadian Olympic Committee. Yet, he is not a citizen of the country he has called home for some 30+ years. Just like Tiger Woods, he wants to play by the rules that only suits him best. He has made a very good living in Canada, yet hasn’t felt it necessary to become a citizen. Just like Pinball Clemons, who plays the same game of “loving Toronto and Canada so much”, yet states he “hasn’t found time” to become Canadian. Very strange… quite selfish.
What was that case about? Neither of them explained and I don’t recall anything.
But from the way they were talking about it, they considered it pretty frivolous. Considering it’s taken years to go to court with absolutely zero press coverage I don’t think Rogers is too worried about it.
I heard that as well pdh. I remember it being a multi-million dollar defamation suit from the fact that they reported false reasons for his dismissal when former CFL commissioner Mike Lysko got fired. the fact that it still exists suggests that there must be some merit to it. The frivilous lawsuits tend to go away very quickly, which I am sure that McCown, Cox and Rogers hoped would happen in this case. Pretty foolish for them to be laughing about it on national radio. I wish I knew more about this because it would be fascinating. Anyone out there have acccess to any info?
I am pretty sure the lawsuit Lysko filed against McCown had nothing to do with Damien Cox………………I don’t know any details about the lawsuit that McCown & Cox were discussing last week but I don’t think in involves Lysko
I wonder who else it would be. The timing makes sense — they said “8 years ago”. I do remember McCown, Cox and good old Marty York were the ones who were sued.
BTW – does anyone know what ever happened to York?
McCown is king of the info-mercial. He’s done this several times before. Think back to the 2007 Grey Cup in Toronto. He spoke incessantly prior to, during and after the game about the activities surrounding the’big game’. He also benefited greatly by attending the free-bee events without ever having to reach in his pocket to pay for anything.
He’s also promoted heavily the 2 schiesters running the Argos – to the benefit of himself (more info on their parties – no doubt paid for by the BC Lions owner). I used to be a fan of his but today he’s nothing more than a shill for hucksters like this Bitive person (gee, I wonder if he’s related to John???). That would be a rhetorical question, of course.
To me, it comes down to disclosure. If any media member has a vested interest in a story subject, he must divulge that to his readers/listeners/viewers. Once that is done, then the readers/listeners/viewers can decide if the information they are receiving is credible. A good case in point: It was reported that Gordon Kirke was working on the Maple Leafs’ executive search while he was sitting in on and participating in the PTS roundtable – a forum which, of course, often touches on matters related to the Leafs. To me, that was fine, again because the listener, based on his knowledge of Kirke’s conflict, was then in a position to decide for himself whether what Kirke had to say was legitimate or not. (Personally, I think Kirke is dumb as a brick, but he does have a degree of integrity.) On the other hand, there is Bruce Dowbiggin, who has also been on the PTS roundtable in the past, as well as at one time the co-host of a FAN 590 show. His conflicts, in particular involving NHL player agents, were never divulged . . . and yet he was allowed to pop off on issues for which he had a vested interest. That is dangerous . . . and, quite frankly, an area that Nelson Millman wasn’t always as quick to respond to as he should have been.
McCown is most certainly not a journalist, but rather a self-promoting egotist — a very good one.
I do like Bob and enjoy his opinions most of the time, even the one’s that are way off my way of thinking, But his arrogance is hard to take at times, especially when I hear his “I know how to fix it” diatribes at times. He did that on Friday about the Olympics and how the COC has no idea what they are doing — but Bob does. Boring and flat out wrong!
I must take a rest from Bob every now and then, but certainly do like Stephen Brunt as a foil. I could not stand listening to a so-called journalist Jim Kelley on those days when he was on PTS. I switched the station because I could not stand the constance interrupts with ass-kissing and wrong facts. Thank goodness Kelley has been sent packing back to Buffalo — I know I am not the only one with that opinion.
To me the FAN590 has got to the point that I find is unlistenable most of the time. Either I am getting old, or just wiser? Hearing dopes like Gord Stellick’s shrill voice and idiotic remembrances of the 80s Leafs makes one want to put shards of glass into one’s ears. Yet Stellick calls himself a journalist. Hmm seems anyone can call themselves that these days as all the FAN590 on-air personalities do…
Nelson’s job at Sportsnet will pay him very well to baby sit the egos of the “talent”. It will be easy for him to carry the party line of continue to create the nightly drivel. Only time will tell if he cleans up the standards and doesn’t allow the Kyperos-like “I know this about that reporting” with no back-ups, fact checks or sense of reality which is now the norm.
Your point about Brunt is a good one. He makes PTS worth listening to.
Does anyone know if McCown is still really close with the Argos owners? I remember a few years ago he wouldn’t go more than 2 weeks without name dropping C&S and something he did with them. Going out to dinner, being invited into the locker-room pre-game to hear pinballs speach and talk to players, watching away games at their houses, getting asked to be on the Grey Cup committee, go to parties with them, you name it.
He doesn’t seem to do that as much anymore so I’m wondering if its because he had a falling out with them or that he wised up and realized he shouldn’t be blatantly showing how bias he is towards the Argos.
McCown has been strangley silent about the fact that C&S really had no right being CFL owners, especially when Braley was paying the bills. Because he is so cozy with them, he doesn’t call them out – even when they are rumoured to be considering becoming owners of the NHL team in Phoenix. They don’t have enough $$ to own a CFL team and they want to be NHL owners? Please. Like the Tillman situation, McCown tends to look the other way when it comes to his buddies. It does not serve his listening audience well.
Maybe it’s best he stays clear of those topics because of the blatant conflict of interest. If Tillman is a good friend of his, nobody can deny a bias there. Given that situation, it’s best that McCown just not deal with the subject at all. That, in my opinion, is good journalism because it’s impossible for him to be impartial and it’s better to say nothing at all.
Actually, if McCown is a “journalist”, and every other media outlet is leading with the story about a CFL GM being charged with a sex crime, he has a responsibility to report on it. If he chooses not to because of his relationship with Tillman, then he owes it to his audience to acknowledge that. By pretending it is not an important story or ignoring it altogether, then he is doing a disservice to the audience who has a right to know about his relationship. It is just a matter of being honest and upfront about your biases and conflicts. He does not achieve this by ignoring the issue as if it doesn’t exist.
While it is true that McCown has refrained from criticizing the Argos owners over the last few years, it is also true that he has slagged them recently regarding the hiring of Bart Andrus. Several times in the last few weeks he has said he is 100% certain that the owners are the ones (not general manager Adam Rita) who made the decision to hire Andrus
Just yesterday he said they were mainly to blame for the Argos being a disaster, and he did mention Tillman. Just once mind you.
i’m looking forward to your analysis of the Cherry outburst Mr. Houston.
To call McCown a “journalist” is a stretch. He treats his buddies very differently than his normal guests. How else would you explain the fact that when Eric Tillman’s charges were announced, it was national news for two straight days except on PTS. McCown never even mentioned it once even though he has three hours each day. He has also been strangely silent on the Argos ownership issues even though it is clear that Cynamon and Sokolowski depended on David Braley to purchase and sustain ownership of the club.
He tends to talk tough, but then becomes quite meek when someone is in studio sitting across from him. I recall that he is also on the wrong end of a multimillion dollar defamation suit brought by former cfl commissioner Mike Lysko. He said some pretty nasty things about him. I would love a front row seat at that trial!
I listen to McCown regularly, and I hear many examples of journalism. He has called out Rogers, the company that employs him, for the Buffalo Bills fiasco, and the management of the Blue Jays. He also takes the NHL to task on various issues like US expansion, attendance figures, fighting, concussions, and drug testing. He had many angles on the NHLPA’s firing of Paul Kelly, including most of the key players. He argued with Doug McLean over his flip-flopping so strongly that they’re no longer friends. He covered the Phoenix Coyotes through the summer and even had the Ice Age people on months before they bought the team. He had the Argos coach on shortly before he was fired, and questioned his ability in the CFL. He questioned his own co-host about taking part in the Olympic Torch Relay. It’s a pretty rare afternoon that he doesn’t ask tough questions.
Living in Toronto last year after moving from Alberta, I find McCown to be little more than a warmed over, larger-city version of Edmonton’s Bryan Hall. Hallsie is deliberately abrasive as hell, will shill for anybody and everybody and also has an inexplicably large fan base of people who insist he’s the greatest thing on radio since the microphone was invented. Only difference is, Hall could actually call games, even though he was terrible at it. His CFL broadcasts were impossible to follow, he frequently would use a break in the action to shill for somebody, usually Tony Roma’s, and he would walk all over his colour guys all the time. I couldn’t stand Hall and I have no time for McCown.
so Millman doesn’t think much of your work, and you don’t think much of his. fair enough.
i must say that it takes stones to call out McCown when he features you on his own blog. the McCown franchise is pretty much untouchable at this point and in my opinion it’s clear that he knows it. i found it funny this week when he referred to himself as a journalist.
Journalism is all about the infomercial…cant turn on CTV Toronto news without a news story about the latest Canadian Idol update, or Think You Can Dance loser…is it news when some dope gets voted off the island? or just shameless promotion?
Big surprise – the supposedly tell-it-like-it-is McCown is nothing more than a shill.
And while we’re at it … those 590 promos where he’s the guy who’s not afraid to say anything never really tell it like it is – he’s big and bad and bold when the subject of his scorn isn’t around. But how many times have we heard him sucking up when he has Bettman on the air?
Don’t get me wrong – he and Brunt are still the best thing there is about The Fan. But, more and more these days, that’s not saying much.
So true about sucking up to Bettman and Daly.
Thanks for including the regional hockey figures!
….to say nothing of the various Bills’ players trotted through the PTS studios in the weeks leading up to the latest 100 yard field fiasco at the ‘Dome. That would be the same Prime Time Sports whose host makes a point of boasting about the fact that he doesn’t interview athletes on his show. At least they didn’t stoop as low (I think) as their TV brothers at CITY and “interview” Hooters Girls at the tailgate in the mud outside.