subject of a lawsuit filed by Midwest RadioTV Inc., Minneapolis, after the team entered a joint venture with the North Star hockey team and United Cable Television Corp.'s Home Entertainment Network a little over a month ago. Midwest Radio-TV bought what it believed were the radio and TV rights and a right of first refusal to pay TV rights last October from Midwest Federal Savings and Loan Association, according to Jim Rupp. president, Midwest-Radio-TV. The case is set to go to trial in late April. Meanwhile, KMSP-TV Minneapolis continues to sublet the rights of Twins coverage and will carry 50 games this year. WCCOLAM) Minneapolis will originate coverage to a radio network of 25 stations that is three-quarters sold out at an average of $185 per 30-second spot. Pabst, Farmers Insurance, Midwest Federal Savings and Loan and True Value Hard ware are major sponsors. Oakland Athletics KBHK(TV) is entering the second year of a three-year joint venture agreement with the A's, with 42 games scheduled and the option for five others. Ten of the home games will be seen exclusively on KBHK. KBHK has added former San Francisco Giants manager Bill Rigney as a commentator. According to KBHK general manager Bill White, the station is planning an intensive promotion campaign, to include "billboards, newspaper ads, TV Guide advertising, point-of-purchase promotions, bumper stickers and an automobile giveaway." The station will highlight game results on the air with the introduction of an "instant scoreboard" graphics package to be displayed after each game during program breaks. KSFO, which holds the A's radio rights through 1984. reports increased sponsor and station interest over last year Scotty Hemley, director of sports programing for the station, said the network expects to add two or three stations before the season starts. Seattle Mariners SPECIAL REP club between $10 million and $15 million Thirty games will be carried on commer- Chicago Cubs WGN-TV reports that sales are proceeding to Dennis Fitzsimmons, director of sales. Montreal Expos With the baseball strike of 1981, the Expos New York Mets and general manager. Mutual's WHN(AM) will begin its first year of a three-year contract for radio coverage. Radio, TV and pay cable rights have jumped nearly 150% in 1983 for the Mets. WOR TV will begin its 21st season as the originator of television broadcasts, a "partnership agree ment" it has had with the baschall club since the Mets began playing in 1962. Sponsors include Anheuser-Busch, Nissan Motory/Datsun Discussions are being held in Seattle on and Manufacturers Hanover Trust. Sales are bringing pay cable and the Mariners togething to Robert Fennimore, station vice president running about 30% ahead of last year, accorder, but the earliest chance for such a union is 1984. This season KSTW(TV) is telecasting 50 games, five at home and 45 away. The station is operating in the second year of a twoyear pact. Its coverage of the Mariners' games will be fed to Boise, Idaho: Portland, Ore., and Spokane, Wash. The station has signed two major sponsors, Anheuser-Busch and True Value Hardware, but has four or five clients it expects to soon sign. Radio seems headed for a good baseball year, according to John Hendricks. general sales manager of KVKAM). He estimated that the baseball inventory is 80% sold, with major commitments made by Budweiser, Chevrolet, Chevron Oil, Farmer Insurance Co. and Fred Meyer Stores. Texas Rangers Warner Amex Cable has signed a reported maximum five-year pact with the Rangers, starting this year, which will bring to the As for pay-cable rights, Sportschannel, a subsidiary of Cablevision, is in its second year of a 30-year agreement, and will air 60 games. both home and away. Sponsors for the cable channel include Budweiser. Toyota and Getty Oil. Philadelphia Phillies The Phillies have a new television originator Prism, the Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based re- Broadcasting Fab 20 1983 third year of a five year contract with the Phillies. It has the exclusive rights to 30 home games in 1983 and will provide them to 81 cable systems in Pennsylvania. New Jersey and Delaware. Prism currently has about 330.000 subscribers, each of whom pays between $10 and $11 for the service (operators pay Prism $5.25 per subscriber). 10-year contract with the Phillies last year Radio rights holder WCAUTAM negotiated a Pittsburgh Pirates KDKA-TV will carry 60 Pirate home games Anheuser-Busch and Giant Eagle food this season, with major sponsors including panies are still being conducted. On the rachain. Negotiations with automobile com dio side. KDKA holds the rights for all 162 games, and the playoffs. Constantine Grab. fairly large increase in sales over last year program director at the station, expects a with major clients including Chevrolet. Melhave additionally sold rights to Warner lon Bank and Anheuser-Busch. The Pirates ble service called Home Sports EntertainAmex Cable for a newly developed pay-cament-Pittsburgh. A five year contract was signed for rights to broadcast 60 home games the first two years, increasing to 80 to 100 games in the last three years of the con tract. St. Louis Cardinals KSDK(TV), in the middle of a five-year agreement, holds rights for the Redbirds through 1984. It has rights to 40 games (including one exhibition game). According to Tony Bello KSDK vice president, director of sales, the schedule is 80% sold inside games (and is about 90% sold during pre- and post-game shows). Major sponsors include AnheuserBusch. Toyota Dealers of St. Louis, Parker Distributors. Kroger stores. True Value Hard ware and Southwestern Bell. An official for the team said the club was looking for cable or pas · TV options "but right now there's nothing out there." (Last year, he noted, the club did do seven STV games over Cox Broadcasting's KDNL TV, and had hoped to do more this year. but Cox dropped its STV mode.) Atlanta Braves Braves games (between 135 and 150 in 1983) are seen on superstation WTHS+TV), commonly owned by Turner Broadcasting System. The radio originator is W.SHAM but the Braves retain the radio rights and sell the advertising for the 162 regular season games and 10 exhibition contests the station broadcasts. WTBS sells the Braves telecasts, which now reach 5,024 cable systems with a total of 25 million subscribers. On March 28 hour documentary on the Braves. The video and 29, WTBS will present a two-part, fourfootage used for the documentary was se lected from 170 hours of videotape that was able sportscaster Red Barber will narrate the shot during the Braves 1982 season. Vener program. Cincinnati Reds Television rights holder WIWI TV) is in the fourth year of a five year contract with the Reds, while radio originator WIWAM) has just signed a new 10-year deal starting with the 1983 season. WLWT will carry 48 Reds telecasts this year, mostly away games. Sponsors include Anheuser-Busch, area Ford dealers, Gulf and Frisch's Big Boy restaurants. Houston Astros The ball club continues to retain conventional television and radio rights, doing its own selling and administrating of regional networks. KRBELAM) Houston, formerly KENR. continues as originating station for a radio network of 40 stations with KRBF-FM there simulcasting night games. New TV originator is KXTH(TV) Houston for a network of approximately 12 stations. Art Elliott, director of broadcast operations for the Astros, conceded that sales were "a trifle slow" in February but that historically sales come on "like the spring floods" in March. Among major sponsors already committed to returning are Anheuser-Busch and Nissan Motors. Los Angeles Dodgers The Dodgers continue to use KYTV(TV) as their exclusive originating station for television and KABCAM) for radio The network for radio has expanded to 28 English-lan SPECIAL REPORT guage and three Spanish-language stations this year. ON TV, the subscription television service aired over KBSC-TV Corona, is entering its seventh season televising 15 home games from Dodger Stadium. The games are scheduled to continue on ON TV through 1984. San Diego Padres Television rights for the Padres transferred from KFMB TV to NBC-affiliate KCST-TV San Diego this year, in a new three-year contract. A station spokesman said details of an extensive promotion campaign are still being worked out and that advertisers are responding "better than expected." KCST-TV expects to offer 49 regular and two exhibition games. WFMBAM) has renewed its three-year contract for English-language coverage, which continues exclusively on that San Diego outlet. Spanish-language coverage, emanating from XEXX(AM) Tijuana, has expanded to 33 stations, including a number in Mexico. According to Jerry Coleman, director of radio and television for the team, the Padres "are very interested" in cable and/or pay television coverage of their games and are contemplating a "substantial cable uperation," involving from 40 to 50 games this season. Coleman says the baseball club is negotiating with at least one MSO and one STV program service for game coverage and eventually will try to obtain access to the cable systems serving an estimated 350,000 households in the San Diego market, the nation's most heavily wired. San Francisco Giants This season marks the end of a five-year radio and television contract between KTVU(TV) and KNBRIAMI and the Giants Team spokesman Pat Gallagher said 1983 "will be a very interesting year for us he cause we anticipate getting involved in pay cable coverage. We know we're going to be getting into it, the question is how (The Giants have not yet ventured outside the traditional broadcast arena.) For this season, KTVU will cover 31 regular season games (all at home) and feed four other stations. KNBR will present play-byplay from all 162 regular season games plus eight pre-season contests. KOFY San Mateo enters its second year of Spanish-language coverage, with 33 games featured. = 1984, and NBC $75 million. CBS Radio signed a new five-year agreement with Major League Baseball last December, covering the years 1985 through 1989 and valued at between $31 and $32 million. This year, the final one in its present contract, CBS will pay close to $3 million for its baseball rights. The USA Network closed out the final year of a two-year agreement in 1983, and, due to the terms agreed upon in the new broadcast network pacts, no national basic cable pact is allowable through 1989. Baseball's interest in cable for game carriage continues to grow regionally, however, as seven more teams begin participation in regional pay networks this season, including three allied with the new Sports Time cable service owned by Multimedia, AnheuserBusch and Tele-Communications Inc. The Sports Time teams are the Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, and St. Louis Cardinals. The World Series champion Baltimore Orioles also moved into the cable ranks with its alliance with Home Team Sports, the Group W pay channel covering the Washington/Baltimore market. The Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers and Milwaukee Brewers are also launching cable projects this year. At this stage only seven teams remain without a pay television deal, and two of them have been trying for some time--the Seattle Mariners, which are still negotiating with Group W Satellite Communications (at this point for a September start date), and the Cleveland Indians. The Indians had a deal with a local group but the service has never gone on the air. Other teams without a regional pay-TV deal are the Atlanta Braves and Chicago Cubs, both carried by superstations, and the San Francisco Giants, Oakland A's and the Montreal Expos For most of the teams now involved in cable, said Brian Burns, director of broadcasting, Major League Baseball, cable is still a "calculated risk" The questions of how cable exposure affects attendance at the gate, and whether any erosion can be offset by pay television revenues, he said, remain unanswered. NBC will televise 32 regular-season games this year (including four doubleheaders and two prime time games) beginning Saturday, April 7, at 1:30 p.m. Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola will again be the announcing team for the primary game. NBC also has the World Series this year, scheduled to begin Tuesday, Oct. 9. The average price of a 30-second spot during the regular season will be approximately $35,000. Rates for the World Series have not yet been set, but a network spokesman said they "will be in the $250,000 range," which compares to the $210,000 that ABC asked last year. NBC baseball is practically sold out in the second quarter, while the third quarter is about 75% sold. Major chents this year include Miller Beer (Backer & Spielvogel). Ford Motor Co. (J. Walter Thompson). Gillette (BBDO) and American Cyanamid (Dancer Fitzgerald Sample). ABC will carry 11 regular-season games this season, three fewer than last year, beginning June 4 with its first Monday night base. BASEBALL 84 ball contest ABC will also carry the AllStar Game this year (July 10), as well as the American League and National League playoff series (best of five), scheduled to start on Oct. 2. Monday night games will cost about $70,000 per 30 in June and $65.000 in July. Two Friday-night contests in July are priced at about $60,000. Prime time league playoff 30's are priced at $130,000, weekend day spots at $65,000 and weekday spots at $25,000. Among the ABC sponsors this year are Chevrolet (Campbell-Ewald), AnheuserBusch (D'Arcy MacManus Masius) and Stroh's (BBDO). A team-by-team breakdown follows: Baltimore Orioles In the second year of a four-year contract and for the sixth straight year, WFBR(AM) will cover all the action of the world champion Orioles. Harry Shriver, WFRB vice president and general manager, said the station in midFebruary was close to a sellout, with just one 60-second and a handful of 30-second ingame spots left. Among top sponsors are Chevrolet, Kelly Springfield Tire, Gulf, Miller Brewing and Maryland National Bank New this season is Mash's (meat and food products). WFBR's announcing team will again be Jon Miller and Tom Marr. Shriver said the station has been whetting Oriole fans' appetites with occasional “cold winter night" replays of last season, along with plans to continue its Stan the Fan callin show, which was introduced in 1983. WMAR TV will be going into the second year of its two-year rights contract with the Orioles and will telecast 52 games. Last year's agreement with Super TV for over-the-air STV games in the Baltimore-Washington area has been terminated. However, Group W Satellite Communications's Home Team Sports has contracted to carry 55 home and 25 road games of the Orioles on a network of cable systems in six states with a total subscriber count of 1.9 million. Home Team Sports debuts with the start of the season. Boston Red Sox The New England Sports Network, a joint venture of the Boston Red Sox, Bruins hockey team and Storer Communications Inc., announced less than two weeks ago it will launch a satellite-delivered pay-cable service reaching all six New England states with at least 150 live sporting events plus other, sports-related programing, during its first year, which will begin April 4. The service, which will include advertising sold both by the network and local cable operators as well as charge subscribers a fee reported to be between $7.50 and $10 per month, depending on the system, will present 90 Red Sox games its first year as well as 40 Bruins games and 40 repeats of Sunday afternoon Red Sox and Bruins games broadcast originally on WSBK-TV Boston, holder of the local broadcast TV rights to both teams. WSBK-TV will broadcast 70 Red Sox games this year, down from the 103 it broadcast in 1983. Because WSBK TV has fewer games to sell this year, advertising rates for the station's coverage have increased about 15% to 20%. according to Stuart Tauber, general sales manager at the station. Major sponsors for this year's coverage are Anheuser-Busch, Toyota, Kendal Oil and Gulf Oil. WPLM(AM) Plymouth, Mass., will again originate coverage of Red Sox games--181 regular and exhibition games--to a network of 75 stations in the New England area and two in Florida. According to station owner and president, John T. Campbell, major sponsors this year are Anheuser-Busch, Ford and PeoplExpress. Cleveland Indians WWWE(AM) continues as Indians radio rights holder and will cover the 162 regular season games plus 12 exhibitions. The rights contract runs through 1985. Herb Score and Nev Chandler will handle booth chores David George, who coordinates WWWE's Indians network. reported solid sales activity, despite expanded in-game availabilities. Anheuser-Busch and Stihl (chain saws) top the list of wwwE's baseball advertisers. WUAB. TV's vice president and general manager, Jack Moffitt, said the independent will telecast 50 road games in the second year of its three-year rights contract. Joe Tait and Reg. gie Rucker, former pro football star, will announce. Moffitt said sales were going "fairly well" and prospects in general are "brighter than last year." Anheuser-Busch, McDonald's and Burger King top the national sponsor list. A decision pends on whether Indians games will again be carried on a regional cable-sports channel Options to those rights are held by the owners of the local basketball Cavaliers who also own the Minnesota hockey North Stars and the Richfield (Ohio) Coliseum. Detroit Tigers "Your Season Pass" is the marketing slogan being used to convince Detroit-area cable subscribers to pay $10 per month for a new, regional sports network that will present Detroit Tigers baseball, Pistons basketball, Red Wings hockey, amateur boxing events and University of Michigan and Michigan State University, basketball and possibly football on a network that will cablecast 365 days a year, starting April 17. The new network, Pro Am Sports Systems (PASS), will cablecast 80 Tigers games, (64 home, 16 away), while local TV nghts holder, WDIV(TV) will broadcast 50 games this year (including preseason) down from 52 regular and five preseason games last year. At launch. PASS expects to have between one-quarter and one-half of the more than one million cable subscribers in its marketing area, which includes northern Ohio and northern Indiana as well as Michigan, according to William J. Wischman, executive White Sox retain all broadcast and cable rights, having partnership arrangement with originators involved WDAP-TV holds TV rights. Stauffer Communications (WIBW) holds radio rights, Sports Time holds pay-cable rights. Midwest Radio-TV Inc holds broadcast rights. Twins and Home Entertainment Network hold STV rights (KTMA-TV Minneapolis) KBHK holds TV rights in partnership with As, KSFO holds Englishlanguage radio nights KBRG holds Spanish-language radio rights (affhates undetermined at this time) KSTW holds TV rights. KVI holds radio rights Rangers retain broadcast rights, Home Sports Entertainment (Warner WGN-TV holds TV rights, WGN holds radio rights. Carling-O'Keefe holds TV rights CFCF holds English-language radio nights, CKAC holds French-language radio rights. Mets have partnership arrangements with broadcast originators: WTAF-TV holds TV rights, WCAU holds radio rights, PRISM holds pay- Group W (KDKA-AM-TV) holds broadcast rights. Home Sports Entertainment Network (Warner Amex) holds pay-cable rights KSDK holds TV rights, KMOX holds radio rights. Sports Time holds pay-cable rights |