Filling the programming void
ESPN, other networks turn to event reruns, own catalogues to pack airtime in wake of live sports being canceled, postponed
ESPN’s channels Friday focused on wall-to-wall news/information and documentary programming in the wake of basketball tournament cancellations, and others opted for event reruns and evergreen programs as sports networks began coping with a month without live sports.
FS1 had the day’s most eyecatching announcement, saying that its live studio shows would be suspended for a week “out of an abundance of caution. … Our top priority is the health and safety of our employees. We will continue to monitor the situation and adjust accordingly.”
ESPN, however, continued with live shows, including plans to air “Sports Center” across prime time Friday night. Saturday, the network aired UFC matches, which is the only major sport that plans to operate during the sports shutdown prompted by concerns over the new coronavirus.
ESPN2, meanwhile, scheduled marathon documentaries on the Boston Celtics-Los Angeles Lakers rivalry and the marathon “Basketball: A Love Story” to replace canceled basketball games.
ABC’s Saturday schedule included another ESPN documentary of local interest, on the Phi Slama Jama basketball teams at the University of Houston in the early 1980s.
CBS, which would have aired the men’s NCAA Tournament beginning Thursday, will return that airspace to its news, entertainment and daytime programming divisions as well as to local affiliates such as KHOU (Channel 11).
The network was working Friday on replacement shows for the weekend.
Warner Media’s TBS, TNT and TruTV, which also planned to air NCAA Tournament games, are expected to return to their normal entertainment lineups with some limited sports reairs.
NBC said it will reair events from its rights catalogue of Olympics, NHL, Premier League soccer, NASCAR, golf, rugby and winter sports competitions on NBC Sports Network, Golf Channel and during weekend afternoons on NBC affiliates such as KPRC (Channel 2).
Patrick Crakes, a former Fox Sports executive who works as a broadcasting consultant, said ESPN is the only sports enterprise with a 24/7 news operation that can sustain itself with extended periods of live programming.
“That doesn’t mean that other channels don’t have news-gathering organizations, but doing it all the time is another matter,” he said. “ESPN is such a beast in terms of manpower that it can still do this while being careful with its employees.”
Regional sports networks such as AT&T SportsNet Southwest, which airs Rockets and Astros games, and Fox Sports Southwest, which airs the Rangers, Mavericks, Stars, Spurs and Thunder, likely will fill their schedules with highlight shows or paid programming such as poker and reairs of combat sports events.
Crakes said networks should be cautious during a time when viewers are on edge because of concerns related to the spread of the new coronavirus that have interrupted the sports calendar.
“They should work carefully and with thoughtful purpose,” he said. “You want to have the correct tone and to provide entertainment and diversion, but you also want to be respectful.”
As an example, Crakes said he would be careful while showing reairs of past events to label them clearly as reruns.
“You presume that everyone knows what is going on, but somebody might see a Big Ten basketball game rerun and get confused and ask on Twitter ‘why is the Big Ten still playing?’ You want to avoid things like that,” he said.
The COVID-19 cancellations mark the first major interruption in sports programming since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This interruption, however, involves considerably different mindsets on the part of networks and leagues, said David Hill, the longtime former chairman of Fox Sports.
“After 9/11, there was fear that terrorists would strike again, and there was a sense of foreboding that I recall discussing with (commissioner) Paul Tagliabue and Roger Goodell before the Super Bowl that year,” Hill said.
“But that was a different fear, an external fear. This is an internal fear. The person who could be compromising your health could be your next-door neighbor. So this is a totally unique time, and nobody can look back in sports history and compare it to anything. It’s a total one-off.”
Hill, however, is confident that the financial underpinnings of sports television and the advertising that supports it will survive unscathed as the COVID-19 contagion runs its course.
“Sports is such a vital part of society and such a vital part of the economy,” he said. “I expect that in a matter of weeks that it will all be back to normal, and athletes will be playing before crowds as normal. But I’m not a scientist.”