08-16-2013, 01:34 PM
Nice to see someone with huge resources to take on the ESPN monopoly..
"Fox Sports 1 not the usual new kid on ESPN's block
Walking boldly onto ESPN's turf doesn't come cheap, but Fox Sports 1 is not your typical start-up, unless you count a media powerhouse simply out to add to the empire
If you're starting a new sports channel — as Fox Sports will when it flips the switch Saturday on Fox Sports 1 — you need a lot of things.
Money. Hundreds of millions.
Cable providers. Ones who will take your rebranded channel at a higher price.
Talent. The big names such as Andy Roddick, Gary Payton, Donovan McNabb, Regis Philbin and Bill Raftery, of course. But also the talent to build your own farm system.
Programming. NASCAR, MLB, U.S. Open golf, Big 12, Pac 12 and Conference USA football and Big East basketball for the majority of your audience. Fill important niches with soccer and UFC.
Promotion is easy: Use your existing network.
Chemistry. At the core of Fox's studio lineup is Fox Sports Live, a nightly program that aims to battle ESPN's SportsCenter. If viewers don't like the feel of the new gang's lineup, though, you don't have a chance.
NASCAR TV: Fox adds three races
FINEBAUM: Radio host returns with ESPN
Eric Shanks, the co-President and COO of Fox Sports offers one other ingredient: Wine.
"We have pretty simple tasks," Shanks says. "We have a big dinner, drink a lot of red wine and see how the conversation goes. If our producer can pull away from the table and our conversation just goes, it's a pretty good sign. It is a good combination of good cabernet and spending time outside of a studio."
Seems like a relaxed plan for a company planning to be in 90 million homes and providing 5,000 hours of live events, news and original programming. Not that Fox Sports 1 is your typical startup. With a network owned by Rupert Murdoch behind it, the new sports channel is the most direct challenge yet to behemoth ESPN in the battle for lucrative sports programming, one of the few genres with the power to draw strong live audiences — the kind advertisers crave — in a world where viewers increasingly record their favorite shows to watch sans commercials at their convenience. Both ESPN and ESPN2 are in more than 100 million homes.
Shanks can afford to keep his creative staff loose. The Fox Sports 1 plan is to build, not be built overnight.
"They are big boys," says Neal Pilson, a former president of CBS Sports who helped negotiate the Big East basketball package that Fox paid $500 million for over the next 12 years. "... They are not underfinanced. No one is worrying about that."
Fox has started aggressively, but it remains officially an upstart. ESPN is the pacesetter in the industry, and anyone hoping to change that will have to add patience to deep pockets and a roster of stars.
"When you have established brands it does take a long time to infiltrate that," says Robert Thompson, Director of the Bleier Center for Television & Popular Culture. "Pepsi knows that about Coca-Cola. Subway knows that about McDonalds. ESPN has become the generic term for sports programming. They dominate the market. It is No. 1. But that was true of CNN and 24-hour cable news, and Fox changed that. It is harder to do in sports than 24-hour news, but it all depends on who you got."
AGGRESSIVE BUYER
Fox has quite a bit, and it's still collecting programming. Last week — on the eve the PGA Championship — it announced with the United States Golf Association a 12-year agreement to carry the U.S. Open, in addition to national amateur championships and other events, beginning in 2015.
The deal was another shake-up to the sports TV industry, stealing the Open from ESPN and NBC Sports. NBC had televised the U.S. Open since 1995, with Johnny Miller as its always-candid analyst an attraction on his own.
"It was a big bummer," Miller told the Associated Press from his home in Utah. "For some reason, I told Dan Hicks at the U.S. Open this year, 'I don't think we're going to keep the U.S. Open.' I just had a hunch it would be ESPN or Fox that stepped in and made a high bid. I know we tried."
But Miller also took a jab at Fox, questioning whether the new network can deliver.
"I don't know what they're going to do," Miller said of Fox. "You can't just fall out of a tree and do the U.S. Open. I guess the money was more important than the performance. No way they can step in and do the job we were doing. It's impossible. There's just no way. I wish Fox the very best."
MORE: Fox gets U.S. Open in 12-year deal
Fox has yet to make an announcement on its broadcast crew, though Golf Digest reported the network had offered the lead analyst job to two-time major winner Greg Norman, who reportedly was interested but non-committal.
It's the lifeblood part of the timeline: Build programming so Fox can command the price and location it wants from cable carriers.
That Fox is converting an existing channel — Speed — into Fox Sports 1 means it does not have to start from scratch. But Fox does have to show its upgraded channel is worth 80 cents per home, about 1/7th what ESPN commands, according to 2013 figures provided by SNL Kagan, a media data analysis firm. It's also more than triple the 20-25 cents Speed earned.
"When you eliminate ESPN, which gets $5.40 a home, the next highest is probably TNT and they are $1.10," says Pilson, now president of his own communications company and a Columbia University professor. "To start out at 80 cents is significant. Most of the channels are 15 to 50 cents. It is a big step for Fox, but they justify it by saying, 'Look we are going to have all sorts of sports programming.' "
Still, industry followers don't seem worried about cable carriers and Fox dickering on price and placement.
Thompson notes "the safe bet is to never bet in favor of a recently launched cable channel," but also recognizes things change "when you are going up against Goliath and David is Rupert Murdoch, that's not a bad David. Rupert Murdoch is hardly a little shepherd boy. They (Fox) bring an awful lot of voltage."
STUDIO SHOWS CRITICAL
While Murdoch may control the money, Scott Ackerson has a big say in how the new venture is executed. The man who made his bones with Fox NFL Sunday is Fox Sports' Executive Vice President/Coordinating Studio Producer. He'll be charged, among other things, with making the nightly Fox Sports Live a success.
His anchors will be Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole, two guys largely unknown in the USA but wildly popular in Canada. The show will also come with a panel moderated by Charissa Thompson and Ackerson's "opinionists" will include Roddick, Payton, McNabb and former NFL offensive lineman Ephraim Salaam.
"We do have a number of different people, whether they are straightforward anchors or analysts, that allows us to be able to zig and zag," Ackerson says, acknowledging that "we will lean more to the opinion side than we will to the analysis side. Most of the people who have tried to compete with ESPN have all really done the same show as ESPN. That is fine. I'm not a big fan of fine." Fine is like saying you want to be a serviceable player.
"The fact that there are hundreds and hundreds of TV channels out there, you really have to work hard to give people a reason to watch your show and not wasting their time and going through the motions."
Ackerson recalls with pride that USA TODAY once "said a decision I made was of one the worst decisions in the history of television."
That decision was putting Jimmy Kimmel on Fox's NFL show. Ackerson also was accused of setting women's rights back 20 years when he added Jillian Barberie to do the weather alongside his NFL crew.
"I would rather take a big swing and miss a little bit than go up and get a single, then bunt him over, steal a base and come home," he says. "Big risk, big reward. In the end, television is simple ... human beings talking to human beings. Do you want to talk to interesting people who like each other or do you not?"
McNabb is eager for viewers to experience Fox's version of the spread offense.
"There is no faking chemistry," McNabb said when asked whether viewers who see the new show will return. "Get ready for a show, kick your feet up, get your popcorn ready, get your chips and dip and make some Kool-Aid in the process. We are going to have a good time."
Adds Charissa Thompson: "There is not going to be a shortage of laughter."
Fox Sports 1 also will be home to shows such as Crowd Goes W!ld with Regis Philbin and others, which the network bills as "unconventional and irreverent" sports discussion.
Neither network is planning a Macy's vs. Gimbels game plan, but they acknowledge they'll keep an eye on each other.
"I doubt that I'm going to stop having ESPN up on one of my TVs in my office," Shanks said. "So I'll be paying attention to it. You try to pay attention to everything. I'll be paying attention to what CNBC is doing. I'll pay attention to what Fox News is doing. But I don't think we've ever had the mentality around there that is cause and effect or some type of action and reaction. We do sit down and think about how we can advance the ball."
ESPN vice-president Mike Soltys said, "We're very confident in our position and try to put the focus on making ourselves better and competition will do that for you. Fox, with the level of success that they've had in other ways over the years, is certainly a formidable competitor, but competition has always made us better so we anticipate that this will be the same situation."
ESPN ADJUSTS
While Fox is likely to make more adjustments in its pursuit of the industry's giant, ESPN is not hesitating to make changes of its own.
Soltys says "Fox was a factor" in ESPN bringing back Keith Olbermann to anchor his own show — Olbermann — in the 11 p.m. ET spot.
"In the early going they pointed towards that 11 o'clock Eastern Time period as a focal point for them," Soltys says. "We feel very confident in SportsCenter at that time, but if sports fans are looking for an alternative to SportsCenter we want to be providing it. Olbermann is a good example because it is the one example. Other than that, it's focusing on our existing schedule and trying to make that better for our own reasons."
OLBERMANN: An unlikely return to ESPN
So what is a reasonable time frame for Fox Sports 1 before they tweak, cancel or spot a few winners among their various shows?
"That is the secret sauce," Pilson said. "That is how you make the money. There is no two weeks, three weeks, five months. It's feel, it's testing. It's using your ratings, your advertisers, talking internally. "
Ackerson won't put anyone on the clock, but says "realistically, sometime between the World Series and the Super Bowl. That is about 3-6 months," although he hopes "we are a little more forward than that."
"Just trying to get everybody together, get your shorts on straight so to speak, it should take that long. As long as we are getting better, doing a little better than we did before."
And while Shanks says "our demo is anybody with a television set," networks need to skew younger because they are more likely to promote them on other platforms.
In the short term, Fox will concentrate on running day-to-day and not getting obsessed with trying to catch ESPN.
"It was Adrian Peterson the other day who started contemplating when he was going to break Emmitt Smith's rushing record. I think it was Week 16 of 2017. So should I say in Week 12 of 2019 is the date we've set?" Shanks asks with a laugh. "That's crazy. We hope over time we start out as a good alternative to ESPN and kind of see where it goes from there. No matter if it's ESPN or other competitors, everybody is doing great work. People are going to find what they are comfortable with."
Ackerson adds that "much like Good Morning America can compete, and in a 10-year period take over the Today Show, I think perhaps we can do that here. I would like to do it faster. ... In the age of Twitter, blogs or whatever, it is much, much easier to get the message out about the show because people talk about it. Both good and bad."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb...n/2641247/
"Fox Sports 1 not the usual new kid on ESPN's block
Walking boldly onto ESPN's turf doesn't come cheap, but Fox Sports 1 is not your typical start-up, unless you count a media powerhouse simply out to add to the empire
If you're starting a new sports channel — as Fox Sports will when it flips the switch Saturday on Fox Sports 1 — you need a lot of things.
Money. Hundreds of millions.
Cable providers. Ones who will take your rebranded channel at a higher price.
Talent. The big names such as Andy Roddick, Gary Payton, Donovan McNabb, Regis Philbin and Bill Raftery, of course. But also the talent to build your own farm system.
Programming. NASCAR, MLB, U.S. Open golf, Big 12, Pac 12 and Conference USA football and Big East basketball for the majority of your audience. Fill important niches with soccer and UFC.
Promotion is easy: Use your existing network.
Chemistry. At the core of Fox's studio lineup is Fox Sports Live, a nightly program that aims to battle ESPN's SportsCenter. If viewers don't like the feel of the new gang's lineup, though, you don't have a chance.
NASCAR TV: Fox adds three races
FINEBAUM: Radio host returns with ESPN
Eric Shanks, the co-President and COO of Fox Sports offers one other ingredient: Wine.
"We have pretty simple tasks," Shanks says. "We have a big dinner, drink a lot of red wine and see how the conversation goes. If our producer can pull away from the table and our conversation just goes, it's a pretty good sign. It is a good combination of good cabernet and spending time outside of a studio."
Seems like a relaxed plan for a company planning to be in 90 million homes and providing 5,000 hours of live events, news and original programming. Not that Fox Sports 1 is your typical startup. With a network owned by Rupert Murdoch behind it, the new sports channel is the most direct challenge yet to behemoth ESPN in the battle for lucrative sports programming, one of the few genres with the power to draw strong live audiences — the kind advertisers crave — in a world where viewers increasingly record their favorite shows to watch sans commercials at their convenience. Both ESPN and ESPN2 are in more than 100 million homes.
Shanks can afford to keep his creative staff loose. The Fox Sports 1 plan is to build, not be built overnight.
"They are big boys," says Neal Pilson, a former president of CBS Sports who helped negotiate the Big East basketball package that Fox paid $500 million for over the next 12 years. "... They are not underfinanced. No one is worrying about that."
Fox has started aggressively, but it remains officially an upstart. ESPN is the pacesetter in the industry, and anyone hoping to change that will have to add patience to deep pockets and a roster of stars.
"When you have established brands it does take a long time to infiltrate that," says Robert Thompson, Director of the Bleier Center for Television & Popular Culture. "Pepsi knows that about Coca-Cola. Subway knows that about McDonalds. ESPN has become the generic term for sports programming. They dominate the market. It is No. 1. But that was true of CNN and 24-hour cable news, and Fox changed that. It is harder to do in sports than 24-hour news, but it all depends on who you got."
AGGRESSIVE BUYER
Fox has quite a bit, and it's still collecting programming. Last week — on the eve the PGA Championship — it announced with the United States Golf Association a 12-year agreement to carry the U.S. Open, in addition to national amateur championships and other events, beginning in 2015.
The deal was another shake-up to the sports TV industry, stealing the Open from ESPN and NBC Sports. NBC had televised the U.S. Open since 1995, with Johnny Miller as its always-candid analyst an attraction on his own.
"It was a big bummer," Miller told the Associated Press from his home in Utah. "For some reason, I told Dan Hicks at the U.S. Open this year, 'I don't think we're going to keep the U.S. Open.' I just had a hunch it would be ESPN or Fox that stepped in and made a high bid. I know we tried."
But Miller also took a jab at Fox, questioning whether the new network can deliver.
"I don't know what they're going to do," Miller said of Fox. "You can't just fall out of a tree and do the U.S. Open. I guess the money was more important than the performance. No way they can step in and do the job we were doing. It's impossible. There's just no way. I wish Fox the very best."
MORE: Fox gets U.S. Open in 12-year deal
Fox has yet to make an announcement on its broadcast crew, though Golf Digest reported the network had offered the lead analyst job to two-time major winner Greg Norman, who reportedly was interested but non-committal.
It's the lifeblood part of the timeline: Build programming so Fox can command the price and location it wants from cable carriers.
That Fox is converting an existing channel — Speed — into Fox Sports 1 means it does not have to start from scratch. But Fox does have to show its upgraded channel is worth 80 cents per home, about 1/7th what ESPN commands, according to 2013 figures provided by SNL Kagan, a media data analysis firm. It's also more than triple the 20-25 cents Speed earned.
"When you eliminate ESPN, which gets $5.40 a home, the next highest is probably TNT and they are $1.10," says Pilson, now president of his own communications company and a Columbia University professor. "To start out at 80 cents is significant. Most of the channels are 15 to 50 cents. It is a big step for Fox, but they justify it by saying, 'Look we are going to have all sorts of sports programming.' "
Still, industry followers don't seem worried about cable carriers and Fox dickering on price and placement.
Thompson notes "the safe bet is to never bet in favor of a recently launched cable channel," but also recognizes things change "when you are going up against Goliath and David is Rupert Murdoch, that's not a bad David. Rupert Murdoch is hardly a little shepherd boy. They (Fox) bring an awful lot of voltage."
STUDIO SHOWS CRITICAL
While Murdoch may control the money, Scott Ackerson has a big say in how the new venture is executed. The man who made his bones with Fox NFL Sunday is Fox Sports' Executive Vice President/Coordinating Studio Producer. He'll be charged, among other things, with making the nightly Fox Sports Live a success.
His anchors will be Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole, two guys largely unknown in the USA but wildly popular in Canada. The show will also come with a panel moderated by Charissa Thompson and Ackerson's "opinionists" will include Roddick, Payton, McNabb and former NFL offensive lineman Ephraim Salaam.
"We do have a number of different people, whether they are straightforward anchors or analysts, that allows us to be able to zig and zag," Ackerson says, acknowledging that "we will lean more to the opinion side than we will to the analysis side. Most of the people who have tried to compete with ESPN have all really done the same show as ESPN. That is fine. I'm not a big fan of fine." Fine is like saying you want to be a serviceable player.
"The fact that there are hundreds and hundreds of TV channels out there, you really have to work hard to give people a reason to watch your show and not wasting their time and going through the motions."
Ackerson recalls with pride that USA TODAY once "said a decision I made was of one the worst decisions in the history of television."
That decision was putting Jimmy Kimmel on Fox's NFL show. Ackerson also was accused of setting women's rights back 20 years when he added Jillian Barberie to do the weather alongside his NFL crew.
"I would rather take a big swing and miss a little bit than go up and get a single, then bunt him over, steal a base and come home," he says. "Big risk, big reward. In the end, television is simple ... human beings talking to human beings. Do you want to talk to interesting people who like each other or do you not?"
McNabb is eager for viewers to experience Fox's version of the spread offense.
"There is no faking chemistry," McNabb said when asked whether viewers who see the new show will return. "Get ready for a show, kick your feet up, get your popcorn ready, get your chips and dip and make some Kool-Aid in the process. We are going to have a good time."
Adds Charissa Thompson: "There is not going to be a shortage of laughter."
Fox Sports 1 also will be home to shows such as Crowd Goes W!ld with Regis Philbin and others, which the network bills as "unconventional and irreverent" sports discussion.
Neither network is planning a Macy's vs. Gimbels game plan, but they acknowledge they'll keep an eye on each other.
"I doubt that I'm going to stop having ESPN up on one of my TVs in my office," Shanks said. "So I'll be paying attention to it. You try to pay attention to everything. I'll be paying attention to what CNBC is doing. I'll pay attention to what Fox News is doing. But I don't think we've ever had the mentality around there that is cause and effect or some type of action and reaction. We do sit down and think about how we can advance the ball."
ESPN vice-president Mike Soltys said, "We're very confident in our position and try to put the focus on making ourselves better and competition will do that for you. Fox, with the level of success that they've had in other ways over the years, is certainly a formidable competitor, but competition has always made us better so we anticipate that this will be the same situation."
ESPN ADJUSTS
While Fox is likely to make more adjustments in its pursuit of the industry's giant, ESPN is not hesitating to make changes of its own.
Soltys says "Fox was a factor" in ESPN bringing back Keith Olbermann to anchor his own show — Olbermann — in the 11 p.m. ET spot.
"In the early going they pointed towards that 11 o'clock Eastern Time period as a focal point for them," Soltys says. "We feel very confident in SportsCenter at that time, but if sports fans are looking for an alternative to SportsCenter we want to be providing it. Olbermann is a good example because it is the one example. Other than that, it's focusing on our existing schedule and trying to make that better for our own reasons."
OLBERMANN: An unlikely return to ESPN
So what is a reasonable time frame for Fox Sports 1 before they tweak, cancel or spot a few winners among their various shows?
"That is the secret sauce," Pilson said. "That is how you make the money. There is no two weeks, three weeks, five months. It's feel, it's testing. It's using your ratings, your advertisers, talking internally. "
Ackerson won't put anyone on the clock, but says "realistically, sometime between the World Series and the Super Bowl. That is about 3-6 months," although he hopes "we are a little more forward than that."
"Just trying to get everybody together, get your shorts on straight so to speak, it should take that long. As long as we are getting better, doing a little better than we did before."
And while Shanks says "our demo is anybody with a television set," networks need to skew younger because they are more likely to promote them on other platforms.
In the short term, Fox will concentrate on running day-to-day and not getting obsessed with trying to catch ESPN.
"It was Adrian Peterson the other day who started contemplating when he was going to break Emmitt Smith's rushing record. I think it was Week 16 of 2017. So should I say in Week 12 of 2019 is the date we've set?" Shanks asks with a laugh. "That's crazy. We hope over time we start out as a good alternative to ESPN and kind of see where it goes from there. No matter if it's ESPN or other competitors, everybody is doing great work. People are going to find what they are comfortable with."
Ackerson adds that "much like Good Morning America can compete, and in a 10-year period take over the Today Show, I think perhaps we can do that here. I would like to do it faster. ... In the age of Twitter, blogs or whatever, it is much, much easier to get the message out about the show because people talk about it. Both good and bad."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb...n/2641247/