TVSquad

I hope Hannah Storm enjoyed sleeping late since she's been off the CBS Early Show because her new gig will be on the AM shift once again. And she'll be back talking sports. ESPN is going to announce tomorrow that Hannah Storm will anchor a new, revamped SportsCenter morning edition. SportsCenter is already on every morning, so you have to assume that by adding Storm to the mix, the folks at Disney (ESPN's parent company) are looking to pump up the old format and maybe bring in some new viewers -- like maybe those who used to watch Hannah on CBS.

Of course, there's already two other competing morning shows on the ESPN family of channels, Mike & Mike in the Morning which stars Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, and First Take (formerly known as Cold Pizza) with Jay Crawford and Dana Jacobson.

Invented a new product that you'd like to pitch to millions of sports fans? Think you could pack all your thoughts into one second? Got a hundred thousand dollars kicking around?

Didn't think so.

According to Reuters, NBC (they're airing Super Bowl XLIII in Jan. '09) is expected to announce that the starting rate for a 30-second spot during the big game will be $3 million. Wow. That factors out to a hundred grand per second. Last year's going rate was a mere $2.7 million.

While I'm sure this comes as no surprise (I mean, c'mon - the rates jump every year, don't they?) to the big companies known for their Super Bowl commercials (think Budweiser, Coke, Pepsi, Fed Ex, etc.), it still makes you wonder how some of these smaller random companies can afford it. Every year there's some new Internet start-up you've never heard of and they'll end up having one of the most talked about commercials - like GoDaddy.com from a few years ago. It just seems like a real gamble. Rather than put all of your footballs in one field (eggs in a basket, get it?), I would think that spreading your money over numerous smaller ad campaigns would make more sense.

This idea could be great (like MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch come to life) or it could be the stupidest thing ever. I'm guessing it's somewhere in between.

CMT has announced that Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling will debut this fall. The show will pit two celebrities against each other, and they are trained for the match by former wrestlers. Hogan himself will act as one of the judges. Hogan is becoming quite the media king. Besides this show he hosts NBC's American Gladiators and has the VH1 reality show Hogan Knows Best. By the way, this show was co-created by Eric Bischoff and Jason Hervey, who played Wayne on The Wonder Years.

I can assume that when they say "celebrities" that it's a safe bet we won't see Julia Roberts or George Clooney in the ring. I would guess it would lean more towards Dustin Diamond, Tonya Harding, and whatever reality show has been from The Bachelor or Temptation Island needs a paycheck that week.

Anyone catch the live broadcast of Costas NOW last night? I was lucky enough to get a few tickets and went to the live taping in Manhattan with my girlfriend. And I really do mean lucky. Not only did we get seated in the front row, but we were seated right in front of all the panelists. Everyone. Joe Buck, Cris Carter, Mitch Albom, Mike Tirico, Michael Wilbon, John McEnroe... the list goes on. And of course, Bob Costas was only a few feet in front of us on stage. For a sports and TV fanatic, it was very impressive. So why am I writing about it? The town hall format of the show covered a lot of hot topics in sports, but there were a couple segments that really stood out because they directly relate to what we're doing here at TV Squad -- blogging and athletes' (or in our case TV celebs, writers, and producers) reactions to the media.

I've mentioned several times in this space about my love for ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, but I can always find a reason to say it again: I love this show! I mean, both Kornheiser and Wilbon rank several places higher than most of my family on my Kidney Donation short-list. I don't want to overstate the issue, but spending an afternoon eating pizza and watching PTI makes me understand how Cartman felt when he got own his own amusement park. Soooooooooo happy.

As I was describing (yet again) to my wife how much I love the show, something occurred to me regarding all the other other millions and millions talking-head shows bouncing around my digital cable box: why don't any of them employ a stat boy?

Let me start this rant by saying that I like sports. No, I love sports. I'm a fan. I get the DirecTV NBA package and the major league baseball games. I can talk to you for hours about stats and players and great games. That said, I hate the way Sunday sports programming drifts over into primetime. This happens primarily on CBS and Fox with the NFL games in the fall and winter, but the other networks have been guilty of staying with the game and then still insisting on showing the primetime schedule after the game is over -- even if that means that an 8 o'clock show begins at 8:45 and your DVR gets all screwed up and you wind up with only 15 minutes of a show you wanted to see!

The Contender, the boxing reality show that began life on NBC before being canceled and moving to ESPN for the last two seasons, has been canceled once more. Despite launching a few boxing careers -- and bringing us the fun of Sylvester Stallone air-boxing whenever he watched a fight during the first season -- the show's producers "couldn't come to terms" with ESPN for a fourth season.

The producers expect the show to move to another network, which means that somehow boxing is still considered by someone as a viable form of entertainment. I mean, I know we're in a recession and all, but did the whole world get transported back to 1932, Island in the Sea of Time style when I wasn't looking?

The best part about the show's continued existence is that Greg Giraldo can continue performing his classic stand-up bit: "There's a new reality show out there now in which they get together a bunch of boxers and try to find the best one. Remember the show they used to have where they tried to do that? Yeah, it was called Boxing."

[via PopCandy]

Game over. The NFL Network has made a change in the broadcast booth and Bryant Gumbel will not be back calling games. The veteran broadcaster, one-time host of NBC's Today show and CBS's Early Show and currently the host of HBO's Real Sports, has been doing play by play on the NFL Network's eight-game schedule alongside color commentator Cris Collinsworth for the past two seasons. He's now the ex-play by play man.

The NFL Network didn't say who would be replacing Bryant, and the way it was presented it appears that the decision to separate at this time was a mutual decision. Still, it was Gumbel who tendered his resignation, perhaps avoiding the embarrassment of being dumped.

Did you know that baseball players are big-time soap opera fans? It's true. All that time they spend hanging out in the clubhouse during the day, they have the soaps playing in the background. Not all, but a lot. That said, it'll be interesting to see if the same things that sell soaps -- the drama, the relationships, the never-ending stories -- work for ESPN in selling their Fantasy Baseball League. They're calling the series of commercials "Endless Drama."

Online video platform Joost is may offer full length TV episodes, but Joost is more of a video on demand service than a live TV service. But that could change, starting today. NewTeeVee reports that Joost will offer live streaming video of the NCAA's March Madness tournament.

Personal video recorders are changing the way people watch scripted television shows and movies. But for the most part people like to watch sports and other live events, well live. The odds of taping Lost and then walking down the street the next morning only to have the plot spoiled by a front page newspaper story are fairly slim. But that's exactly what happens if you record last night's basketball game with plans to save it until the weekend.

So while video on demand is absolutely the right business model for most online video, the ability to provide live streams of some content seems crucial. Now let's see how many people actually turn to Joost instead of, you know, a television set for their March Madness coverage.

[via NewTeeVee]

Reality is not reality like in TV reality series. Reality, in fact, is usually too true and very often sad. With that in mind, David Edwards, the young man who was the inspiration for the character Jason Street on NBC's Friday Night Lights, has died. Just 20 years old, David was injured by playing high school football for San Antonio Madison in November 2003. He was a defensive back, and while going after a pass, he collided with an Austin Westlake receiver. Edwards' neck was broken and the injury resulted in his becoming paralyzed.

Wrestling fans can breathe a sigh of relief today: you'll still get your Friday fix of power drives and folded chair smashing.

MyNetwork (aka "the network no one is quite sure they have on their local cable system or not") has won the rights to air Friday Night Smackdown. The show had been on The CW (and before that UPN - remember those days?) since 1999, but the rights ran out on January 31.

In recent weeks, TV Squad has reported that HBO has made episodes of their new drama series In Treatment available for free viewing online. Now, HBO has taken another step in expanding its brand and making some of their top shows available on the web. The cable channel has just inked a deal with YouTube to create an HBO channel online. The HBO/YouTube site is up and running -- you can click over there today and start catching up on HBO series.

The initial line up is impressive, starting with the Gabriel Byrne drama In Treatment. You can also catch up with Entourage episodes, which are always fun. There are more laughs with Flight of the Conchords, Extras, Stand Up Comedy, Def Comedy Jam, and Real Time With Bill Maher. On the dramatic front, there's The Wire. In addition, you can watch episodes of the award-winning magazine show Real Sports, as well as the Latino documentary series Habla y Habla.

Recently, TV Squad reported that NBC has added all kinds of classic TV shows to their online outlets. Now comes the announcement that CBS is also bringing a variety of well-loved TV dramas to the web. CBS Interactive is raiding the CBS Library, which is "one of the largest television programming libraries in the entertainment business," to present TV series online across the CBS Audience Network.

Like the NBC fodder, the CBS offering is gangbusters: full-length episodes of classic Star Trek, Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, MacGyver, Hawaii Five-O and Melrose Place. CBS plans to add more programs and clips in the coming months, including sports and other kinds of entertainment.

Yesterday, Amani Toomer and Michael Strahan of the World Champion New York Giants (boy, it feels great to write that) stopped by The View to talk about fitness equipment. During the segment, Whoopi Goldberg, who is such a self-proclaimed Giants fan that she spoke during the team's post-victory-parade ceremony at New York's City Hall, asked Toomer about the miracle catch he made late in the game, where he pinned the football to his helmet before being tackled.

There was just one problem: Toomer didn't make the catch. David Tyree did. Video is after the jump, thanks to our friends at BestWeekEver.tv