DAVID BARRON
Bassmaster stream reels in loyal base of viewers.
Back in 1999, Fox Sports took a oneday flyer into televising a live bass fishing tournament. It was not a successful experiment, to put it mildly, and for a few years the concept of live fishing served as a handy sports TV metaphor for ideas that were way, way ahead of their time.
Technology, however, has changed the game. Friday through Sunday, BASS, the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, will stream six hours a day of live fishing from Lake Conroe at the GEICO Bassmaster Classic.
And, unlike the 1999 Fox event, you’ll see fish being caught while the cameras are rolling.
Organizers expect more than 500,000 video views of the threeday event. That’s still not a huge number by linear TV standards, but it’s a solid figure for a live streaming program, which provides a relatively low-cost platform to service a small but devoted fan base.
“Bassmaster LIVE” will be available Friday through Sunday on ESPN3.com, Bassmaster.com and the WatchESPN mobile app. The show is produced by JM Associates, which uses cellular technology to master the seemingly unsolvable problem of covering a field of play that stretches for miles in any direction.
“They talk about golf having a big field of play, but for golf they can run cables to the holes,” said Mike McKinnis, vice president of media content for JM Associates. “We’re on a huge lake with miles of shoreline. But technology now enables us to do the job.”
As long as his crews can get a decent cell signal, which should be easier in suburban Houston than it is in some of the more rural stops on the Bassmaster Elite circuit, McKinnis can provide a high-quality signal for the live stream as well as for use
in the highlight show that will air later this year on ESPN2.
“Bassmaster LIVE” from Lake Conroe will run from 7-10 a.m. and 11:30-2:30 p.m. each day. Hosts Tommy Sanders, Mark Zona and Davy Hite will anchor from the George R. Brown Convention Center with reports from on-the-water reporter Robbie Floyd and tips from guest analyst Brian Robison, the Minnesota Vikings defensive lineman from Splendora who is familiar with the lake.
McKinnis sent me a sample show from a tournament earlier this year in Florida. I counted 15 fish landed in one three-hour segment, including a nine-pounder pulled in by the eventual tournament winner, Tim Horton, just a few minutes after Horton’s boat pulled back into cellular range after being out of touch for several hours on a remote part of the lake.
Even with technology, fishing on TV and the Internet, just like fishing in real life, involves a certain degree of luck.
The action can drag at times, obviously, but the hosts keep up a steady stream of patter based on weather conditions and observations from recent tournaments. There are plenty of graphics and other visual elements, and producers frequently leave microphones open to allow viewers to eavesdrop on the anglers themselves talking about how their day is going.
“The hardcore viewer is watching for technique. They want to know how to do it,” McKinnis said. “The casual fan just wants to see a fish get caught. Lake Conroe should be fun for us, because there are a lot of big fish out there.
“We’ve had big moments for years on the highlight show where you’ve seen somebody catch a fish that makes a difference in the tournament. Now we’re seeing it happen live. We can watch those defining moments as they happen.”
The unsung heroes, of course, are the cameramen, who spend hours on the water in the same boat with the fishermen and spotters, waiting for the right moment. “This is the toughest gig out there for a camera guy,” McKinnis said.
One more orbit
Unlike a lot of broadcasters, Todd Kalas doesn’t have a set home run call and has no plans to adopt one. He will make an exception, however, on Sunday during the Astros-Nationals game from West Palm Beach, Fla., on Root Sports Southwest.
Sunday would have been the 81st birthday of Kalas’ late father, Ford C. Frick Award winner Harry Kalas, who died in 2009. To mark the occasion, Todd Kalas said he will break out Harry’s Houston-era homer call, “That ball’s in Astro orbit,” if somebody goes deep Sunday,
Root will have the games Saturday, Sunday and Monday from Florida before breaking camp with the team and returning to Houston. The network also will telecast Thursday’s exhibition against the Cubs at Minute Maid Park.
Little Texas tournament interest
Even with absolutely no boost from viewers in Texas, CBS and Turner Sports say viewership for the first four days of the NCAA Tournament was the best in 24 years. Games through Sunday averaged 9.325 million up from 8.513 million last year.
Digital streams, meanwhile, totaled 69.1 million, up 24 percent.
Among the 56 major markets, Houston ranked 52nd with a 4.0 Nielsen rating, Dallas-Fort Worth was 53rd with a 3.6 average and San Antonio was 55th at 3.1. Austin was 39th with a 5.2 average.
As for this weekend, CBS has the South Regional in Memphis ( Jim Nantz/Grant Hill/Bill Raftery) on Friday and Sunday while TBS has the East Regional at Madison Square Garden (Verne Lundquist/ Jim Spanarkel). Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller and Dan Bonner will work Saturday’s Midwest final in Kansas City, Mo., and Brian Anderson and Chris Webber have the West final in San Jose, Calif.
On the women’s front, meanwhile, Houston tied for 12th among all markets for NCAA Tournament ratings on the ESPN networks. Of course, it helps that Baylor and Texas are legit threats to make it to the Final Four in Dallas.
Top sports stations take dip
The late winter/early spring sports slump officially is upon us. After accounting for 4.5 percent of the weeklong audience among men 25-54 in the January ratings book from Nielsen Audio, Houston’s three sports stations that draw ratings slumped to 3.3 percent in February.
How mediocre is that, you ask? There are 13 stations in Houston that had a better audience share among men 25-54 on their own during February than the three sports stations had combined (KGOW, 1560 AM, continues to miss the ratings list with an audience too small to be measured by Nielsen.)
With Texans season done, it’s anyone’s ballgame. KFNC (97.5 FM) finished in a virtual tie with KILT (610 AM) in the weeklong numbers for the key demo and beat KILT in morning drive in February. The three stations are within less than a half-point at middays, and KILT and KFNC are neck-and-neck in afternoon drive.
Meanwhile, KBME (790 AM) afternoon host Josh Innes had a noticeable audience uptick in the February book, posting the first month-tomonth increase of his tenure here.
Innes remains third in the time slot among sports stations, and he will require at least four more months of comparable growth to gain back what KBME has lost in that time slot since his arrival, but anything’s possible.
For the market as a whole, among the major takeaways from the February book includes KTRH (740 AM) leading all stations in middays (10 a.m.-2 p.m.) among listeners 12-plus and 18-plus with its conservative issues talk format.
Also noteworthy are the continued growth of CBS Radio’s new adult hits format at KKHH (95.7 FM) and a strong month for KMJQ (102.1 FM), which led all stations for the month among viewers 12-plus and 18-plus.
We are choosing to comply with Nielsen Audio’s guidelines not to use numbers for stations in smaller demographics, including men 25-54.
For the larger 12-plus audience, KMJQ topped the month-long numbers with a 7.0 percent audience share, followed by KLTN (102.9 FM) and KODA (99.1 FM) at 6.3 each, KGLK (107.5/106.9 FM) at 5.6 and KSBJ (89.3 FM) at 5.4.
For comparison purposes, audience shares for the sports stations last month among persons 12-plus were 0.8 for KILT and 0.5 each for KFNC and KBME.
Four DVRs, no waiting
April 14 will be Doug Gottlieb’s final show on CBS Sports Radio. Tiki Barber/Brandon Tierney will move from late morning to afternoon drive and will be simulcast from 2-5 p.m. on CBS Sports Network. Damon Amendolara will move from nights to late mornings (8-11 a.m.), and a new nighttime show will be announced later. CBS Sports Radio airs in Houston on KIKK (650 AM). Gottlieb — who reportedly will interview for the coaching position at his alma mater, Oklahoma State — will move in April to the 2-5 p.m. time slot on Fox Sports Radio and also will appear on Fox Sports 1. … AT&T/DirecTV apparently are close to an agreement with Major League Baseball to allow streaming of Astros games by authenticated Root Sports Southwest subscribers. Authentication methods may be the holdup.