Ah! To Be A Demo, Again!

It was with keen interest that I saw that Fox's "American Idol" beat out CBS's Survivor - Panama" and ABC's "Dancing With The Stars" and even the Olympics in the all important 18 - 49 year old demographics.

I am older than 49.

It may be interesting to note that I make and spend as much money (sometimes more) than I did when I was living within the targeted demo. Before I was 27, I was making poverty wages. My tv (and radio) preferences were important to the advertisers as I was making "peanuts," in my 20's. Now, with four decades in the work force, Madison Avenue thinks that my TV viewing habits are of no consequence. Perhaps so. As far as disposable income is concerned, pssssst, Nielsen and Arbitron, my house and cars are paid for!

2 Much Of A Good Thing?

When is more better? On payday, yes. When it comes to the Olympics, NO! How many events are there in the Winter Olympics? Of all these events, how may categories are there within these events? Good God! Enough already! Although the atheletes, for the most part, are well trained and worthy of recognition, enough is enough before you start to water down the competitions to the point where we have a diluted season of somewhat obscure winter activities. Do you remember "Who wants To Be A Millionaire" on ABC TV? Great show! Until they put it on so often that it be came so commonplace that nobody cared. Simply stated, it burned itself out. Note to the I.O.C.: More is better until you cross the line. Look behind you. See the line?

Breaking News

Headline: VP Cheney Involved In Hunting Accident. This is no longer news, but I'd still rather hunt with Dick Cheney than go riding with Ted Kennedy!

Headline: Pammy's No Chicken! Pamala Anderson's no chicken, if she were a chicken, she'd have a bone to pick with the colonel. She doesn't like the way the company treats their chickens. She's boycotting the Kentucky Derby since one of its sponsors is the parent company of KFC.

Headline: Sammy Sosa Is Retiring From Baseball Why? He's just 6 home runs short of 600 in his career. Baseball been veddy good to him.

Kwan Song

Michelle Kwan pulls herself out of the Winter Olympic Games! Wait a minute! Don't we have Olympic coaches and trainers who may have seen this coming? NBC saw it coming in January when they offered Kwan an announcing job for the Olympics broadcast. Now what? We have to grab a high school junior from Long Island, Emily Hughes, to take her place at the last minute. Is this fair? Of course not. It shows stupidity and arrogance on somebody's part. You can blame whomever you wish. This is the type of sports posturing that you would expect from a team representing a banana republic. Kwan may have been the best at one time, but when the best is not at her best, she is no longer the best. Bottom line, this event will give the USA a worse showing that it has to.

Give Brit A Break!

None of us is perfect. If there were a poster child for this adage it would be Britney Spears. She is enormously successful at a very youg age...but she ain't perfect. Young girls look to Britney for inspiration. They shouldn't. She's married to a bum. Speculation is that she thinks a 2nd baby will "change" her husband. Didn't he have two kids with his ex? So why should it surprise us when young Brit is photoed driving with her kid on her lap? The lesson here is: Money does not buy brains, or common sense, or class, or manners. She says that she accepts the blame and that the papparazzi were also to blame. Well, no, they were not to blame. According to AP, there were two photo journalists at the scene. Brit had her bodyguard with her. The bodyguard waves to one of the photographers and asks him not to take any pictures as he (the bodyguard) goes into a Starbucks for a fancy cup of joe. The picture was taken by the second photo journalist.

Note to Britney: You are in the "celebrity business." A large part of this business is having your picture taken at all hours of the day. When nobody wants to take your picture, you find yourself "out of business."

ABC Loses Michaels

Al Michals is leaving ABC TV Sports. He's been there for 30 years! I've learned how important continuity is in broadcasting. When you have someone with the talent of Al Michaels and you (ABC) and he (Al Michaels) have invested 30 years in each other, why? Why fix something that ain't broken? Whatever they paid Michaels, he was worth it. But, things are changing. Monday Night Football is moving to ESPN and Sunday Night Football is moving to NBC. Some say that Al Michaels will be doing play by play with John Madden on Sunday Nights at the peacock. NBC should mark their re-entry to the NFL with some marquis names in the booth!
Here are some facts on Al Michaels that I shamelessly copied from a fine site on the internet:


Al Michaels was born in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, California where he was a football and baseball player. Later, Michaels went on to study radio and television (major) and journalism (minor) at Arizona State University.

In 1968, Michaels began broadcasting the baseball games of the Hawaii Islanders. During this time, he also called the play-by-play for the University of Hawaii Rainbow men's football and basketball games. He later received the honor of "Sportscaster of the Year".

In 1971, he moved to Cincinnati and became the number one broadcaster for the Reds. Then, in 1974, he repeated that feat, this time with the San Francisco Giants.

Michaels joined ABC Sports full time in January of 1977 and has covered many events including NCAA Football, NHL Hockey, the Olympic Games and ABC's Wide World of Sports, Major League Baseball and currently as the play-by-play announcer for Monday Night Football.

Not A "Super "Super Bowl

Super Bowl XL had more than its share of questionable officiating. The better team won (probably). The commercials were conservative as you would imagine, being that we are still in the Janet Jackson Era. Which makes me wonder about the half time entertainment. Did Mick Jagger forget the song lyric or what....in a couple of places...during "Start Me Up," the line "you make a dead man come" was cut short. A barnyard reference to "cocks" in the new song "Rough Justice" also mysteriously disappeared. I'd give the "production" (ABC/NFL/Etc) a C. Perhaps less, but I was away from the TV during the National Anthem.

Rizzuto's Garage Sale

If you're over 25 and live in the New York area, Phil Rizzuto is a well known name. There was a time when, I think, he would have been a cinch to be elected to any public office that he might want. What he really wanted was to be elected to baseball's Hall Of Fame. He was, finally, in 1994.
But back to the reason for this post. Rizzuto played for the Yankees, 1941 - 1956. During that time he was NEVER ejected from a game! He broadcast Yankees games, radio & TV for 39 seasons. It's sad but he made much more money in the broadcast booth than he ever did on the field. Phil is selling off much of his memoribilia. I head he's keeping his 1950 American MVP Award and all of the Hall Of Fame material. Good. Rizzuto is the oldest living Hall Of Famer. Here are a couple of his quotes...
"I like radio better than television because if you make a mistake on radio, they don't know. You can make up anything on the radio."
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"I'll never forget September sixth, nineteen-fifty. I got a letter threatening me, Hank Bauer, Yogi Berra and Johnny Mize. It said if I showed up in uniform against the Red Sox I'd be shot. I turned the letter over to the FBI and told my manager Casey Stengel about it. You know what Casey did? He gave me a different uniform and gave mine to Billy Martin. Can you imagine that! Guess Casey thought it'd be better if Billy got shot."
Listening to Rizzuto's broadcast of a game was an experience. First of all, he knew the game. He would point out different plays for kids to be aware of, so that youngsters could learn and appreciate the game. In his later years in the booth, sometimes, he would drift off to different subjects. No matter. He was as big of a fan as we were, maybe more.