Ready for its close-up
ESPN2 pumps up showbiz fare in bid for ad coin
By JOHN DEMPSEY
http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...goryid=14&cs=1
ESPN2 is going showbiz in an attempt to pole-vault out of the shadow of its maxed-out parent.
The original sports channel will continue to rely on its winning formula of live sports events buttressed by round-the-clock "SportsCenter" updates, while ESPN2 runs with a new playbook containing scripted movies, an expensive daily entertainment magazine, a loudmouth talkshow host and a "Newlywed Game"-style gameshow.
By bookending live game coverage with entertainment fare, ESPN2 hopes to take advantage of an ongoing trend: the marriage of sports and showbiz.
More than $300 million a year is riding on the makeover of ESPN2, whose programming budget (including rights fees and original productionsOriginal Productions) will rise by 8% this year and by another 7% in 2006, according to Kagan Research.
Only eight ad-supported cable networks will spend more than $300 million in 2006; because of its huge sports license fees, ESPN will lay out more than $3 billion for programming in 2006.
Industry analysts say no other cable network has lavished so much money and attention on one offspring.
The reason: As a mature 26-year-old, ESPN has pretty much reached the limit of its ratings growth. By contrast, ESPN2, which averages less than half of the total viewers of ESPN, has plenty of Nielsen upside.
A strong showing by some of its entertainment-oriented shows could propel ESPN2 into the rarefied ranks of the top-20 ad-supported cable networks in total day. (During the second quarter, ESPN2 finished 33rd overall.)
ESPN2 is counting on a big audience for its Oct. 6 world preempreem of "Four Minutes," a biopicbiopic about Roger Bannister, the first runner to break the four-minute-mile barrier.
ESPN has always claimed first dibs on these original movies in the past, but that's about to change big-time, says Mike Antinoro, exec VP of ESPN Original EntertainmentESPN Original Entertainment (EOE), stressing that "Four Minutes" is only the beginning of ESPN2's newfound prominence within the ESPN jockocracy.
"ESPN Hollywood," which could serve as ESPN2's equivalent of a tentpole -- its "SportsCenter," if you will -- kicks off this week as a nightly half-hour-magazine series airing at 6 o'clock ET.
Modeled on "Entertainment Tonight""Entertainment Tonight" and hosted by L.A.-based Thea Andrews and Mario LopezMario Lopez, "ESPN Hollywood" could end up costing $15 million in the first year on production and marketing -- a top-of-the-line budget that's a clear marker of ESPN2's seriousness.
The network's goal with "ESPN Hollywood," says Dave Berson, ESPN's senior VP of programming and promotions, is "to give our fans what they crave -- namely, access to celebrity athletes. Who are they dating, what videogames are they hooked on, what kind of cars do they drive?"
Antinoro says Lopez scored the first extended on-air interview with Eva Longoria about her relationship with San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker by leveraging his friendship with the "Desperate Housewives" star.
But Burson says "ESPN Hollywood" won't just be a soft lifestyle show. When athletes do something reprehensible, the show will report it, he says, adding, "Our job is to cover the world of sports entertainment, whether good, bad or ugly."
"ESPN Hollywood" leads in to "Quite Frankly," the talkshow starring the boisterous and bombastic Steven A. Smith, tabbed with the nickname "Screamin' A. Smith" because he prefers to bellow his insights and analysis for the benefit of a live studio audience.
Smith, who continues to write a sports column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, will broaden his nascent show to encompass the effect of sports on pop culture, booking guests like Denzel WashingtonDenzel Washington, who played college basketball and is a regular at Lakers games. "Quite Frankly" began Aug. 1, and, counting production and marketing costs, is a $10-million-a-year gamble for ESPN2.
"Smith is edgy, and loaded with at ude," says Bob Gutkowski, sports consultant and former president of Madison Square Garden. "The hip-hop crowd may like him, but I find him relentlessly annoying." ESPN2 is hoping that Smith's detractors will watch him the way Howard Cosell's antagonists did, as the personality you love to hate.
The gameshow, "Teammates," won't kick off as a daily 7 p.m. half-hour on ESPN2 until January, but it's coming off a six-week test run on ESPN last spring, when it showed enough promise to trigger a renewal for 110 half-hours, good for 22 weeks of stripping.
Hosted by Stuart Scott, the show features two sports teammates who answer snarky, and sometimes embarrassing, questions about each other's habits and opinions, a l a "Newlywed Game."
One of the prime benefits of "ESPN Hollywood," "Quite Frankly" and "Teammates": They're all inhouse productions. "If these shows find an audience, they'll end up highly profitable for ESPN2, because the network owns them," points out Mike Trager, former chairman of TV for Clear Channel Entertainment. "It'll be able to control their costs."
By contrast, Trager says, outside suppliers of programming like the National Basketball Assn. and Major League Baseball have the whip hand at renewal time, particularly if other network bidders charge onto the scene.
ESPN2 hopes to create a signature show or two that might trigger appointment viewing -- bringing auds to the net before its live sports action in primetime. Up until now, the net has had to rely on live sports events to keep its ratings respectable.
At the dawn of ESPN back in September 1979, the network made no bones about what its initials stood for: Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. But it didn't take long for sports to subjugate entertainment almost completely.
Now 26 years later, entertainment has elbowed its way back into the picture.
This isn't really related to the article, but I saw Eva on Conan the other night. She said how much she liked Tony, etc. She also said that her cielings are low and that him and his friends were constantly bumping their heads against her chandelier, and that he complained that the toilet was too low
How small is the house? Isn't Tony 6'2??
Mario "saved by the bell" lopez?
I'll watch.
Should be a good time.
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