ESPN is trashing its format for its morning airing of Sportscenter which made both the network and the show so hugely popular to begin with. Instead of airing the same taped version of Sportscenter all morning, ESPN has decided to air three live blocks of Sportscenter daily; the first from 6 am - 9 am, then 9 - noon and noon - 3pm (all times Eastern). Additionally, Hannah Storm, will host the first block, during which will appear highlights, feature stories and interviews. Clearly, ESPN is seeking to emulate the soft morning news programs, like NBC’s Today and ABC’s Good Morning America, and get farther from a no-frills broadcast of all of the previous days sports action.
The further ESPN gets from its original Sportscenter format, that being just two anchors, airing highlight packages of a nights worth of games along with a handful of stories, the less interested I am in watching it. This move towards a CNN-style of sports coverage will just lead to CNN-style sports stories; minute stories will be reported live with full analytic breakdown for each meaningless news bit.
On a day like today, that means that the news regarding the NFL and Spygate would be covered live all morning on Sportscenter, with multiple reporters and analysts providing the viewers with new coverage for an event that can be just as well understood from the AP-Wire crawl: “NFL’s Godell meets with Walsh, Walsh reveals no new information.” Thats the entire story, yet the new and improved ESPN will cover this story live, from 6 am until 3 pm on Sportscenter.
Tom Brady has even spoken out recently about ESPN, saying:
“That’s the way guys make it. They say the craziest things. I think that’s what, that’s what, that’s what ESPN has become. ESPN to me is like MTV without the…without the highlights.”
So much for journalistic credibility. Being the MTV of your industry is nothing to strive for content wise (unfortunately, ESPN is motivated solely by the bottom line).
Tony
Wallace
enice5555
kingstamper
Matt
3 responses so far ↓
Signal to Noise // May 16, 2008 at 4:24 am
All valid concerns, but ESPN had to do something like this because there were several instances last year where breaking news happened during those morning hours where they ran last night’s SC, and it looked really bad from a television and news standpoint.
Nine hours is excessive, however. I would say three would be sufficient and then substitute more actual televised sporting events.
Tony // May 16, 2008 at 7:06 pm
See, if ESPN was making this move just to get breaking news stories, I would be completely ok with it. Even if they were able to cover breaking news stories by preempting Sportscenter when needed in the past.
In reality, this move is to load up Sportscenter with more of the drivel that takes away from highlight footage. In August, SC will be loaded up with live fluff interviews and gimmick sports pieces, like “Who’s Now?” and “Best Highlight Ever!”
Sportscenter circa 1992 had an actual journalistic reputation, looking to cover sports news instead of make sports news. Now, ESPN is only looking to hype up the games that its family of network airs and make its highlight/analysis as shallow as possible.
Charles // December 7, 2008 at 11:20 am
One of your sports announcers stated that O.J. has stopped running. No, O.J. was stopped illegally from running turning possible misdemeanor charges into felony charges. Convicted by a all white jury and indicted by a all white jury. Sentenced by a all white judge, but carried away by a black deputy. That justifies that the white society is non-discriminant. Yeah right! What about the white male who assisted O.J. he received no prison time what soever. This country is still racist and If you are a black man you do not have to commit a crime to go to prison all you need is a all white grand jury/trial jury and possibly one white witness and your going to prison. Why go to trial for formality. You guys are so racist you could save your self money and just send black men to prison without a trial; this is because the conviction is inevitable.