Monday, April 05, 1999
Gue$$ why Reds bumped to cable?
BY JOHN FAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Want someone to blame because the Reds are only on cable this year? Here's a list to start with:
You can blame ER. You can blame Budweiser. You can blame the strike. You can blame the rules for network affiliates.
All of the above had something to do with the Reds local television package ending up exclusively on Fox Sports Ohio. That means roughly 35 percent of the homes in the Tristate cannot get Reds games.
The move toward cable began in 1994 and '95. WLWT (Channel 5) held the rights those two seasons, just like it had when Ted Kluszewski and Frank Robinson were playing.
But Cincinnati had been rocked as hard as any city in baseball by the strike of '94. In '95, the Reds made the National League Championship Series. When 40,382
showed for Game 1 here, it showed how badly the strike had hurt.
This was about the time WLWT was considering renewing its contract.
“Ads were getting harder and harder to sell,” said Bill Fee, now general manager at Channel 9, then the sales director at 5. “We had lost money on the last two years of the deal.”
That's where Budweiser comes in. Anheuser-Busch at one time spent a ton of money buying spots on local broadcasts. One TV source said a rightsholder could nearly cover the cost of the right through the beer money alone.
With that gone, selling wasn't easy. NBC's Must See TV lineup was running strong at that time also.
“We had to pre-empt ER and Friends to put on games,” Fee said.
If the Reds couldn't fill Riverfront when they were playing the Atlanta Braves for the pennant, what chance did they have against George Clooney?
Channel 5 gave up the rights, and SportsChannel, which is now Fox Sports Ohio, bought them.
It was a good fit. The Reds gave SC and now give FSO an identity here. Fox, as a cable station, has a dual stream of revenue to defray the costs of airing games. FSO gets its cable fee and can sell advertising. An over-the-air station lives on the ads alone.
Fox produced the games and what it didn't air, it bought time on Channel 12 and 64 to air. Fox basically bought time on the stations, and then sold the spots.
That's where the network affiliate problem came into play. Two years ago, Channel 12 did 30 games.
“We quickly learned as a CBS affiliate that just wasn't possible,” Channel 12 General Manager Bill Moll said.
The networks have made itdifficult for local stations to pre-empt network programming.
Jon Lawhead, general manager of Channel 19, says the only way 19 can still do University of Cincinnati basketball is because the station was doing games before it became a Fox affiliate.
“It was grandfathered in,” he said. “Affiliate contracts are very restrictive. If we wanted to do 13 or 14 games a year now, there's no way we'd be allowed to.”
After a year of doing 30 Reds games, Channel 12 cut back to 15 and convinced the Reds to start Sunday games at 1:05, rather than 2:15.
“With 2:15 starts, we were always running into golf or NASCAR or 60 Minutes,” Moll said.
The 15-game schedule was fine by Channel 12, and Channel 64 would have renewed its 30-game slate.
“We were very happy,” Moll said.
But Fox Sports Ohio couldn't offer the same deal.
“They weren't interested,” said Bill Pulliam, general manager of Channel 64. “We tried to work out something where we'd take less money and sell some spots, but they still weren't interested.”
Basically, Fox wasn't interested because it was losing money on the arrangement with 12 and 64.
Production costs for a game are about $15,000. That, coupled with the rights' fee — believed to be about $50,000 a game — could not be made up in advertising sales.
This all could change, of course.
The Reds ratings have stabilized the last couple of years. And this Opening Day is being greeted with optimism. If the Reds are in a pennant race come July, there isn't a station in town that wouldn't want to air the weekend series with the Cleveland Indians on July 9, 10 and 11. Maybe they'll remember that when negotiations reopen next year.
“I'm a firm believer in what comes around goes around,” Reds radio man Marty Brennaman said. “There's going to be a day when this team's games are in demand. And, if I'm the man in charge, I'm going to make them pay dearly to get them.”
John Fay covers TV/radio sports for The Enquirer. He can be reached at 768-8445
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