Very quietly, KTRK (Channel 13) has blocked that kick.
Extra Points, the Saturday afternoon magazine/panel discussion show that debuted in September 1997 as an offshoot of a weekly chat segment moderated by Channel 13’s Tim Melton and Bob Allen, has been placed on indefinite hiatus.
Station officials decline, characteristically, to comment, but indications are that the show will not return before Texans football resumes in the late summer, if then.
Extra Points, which last appeared on Jan. 17, has been a consistent ratings performer for Channel 13 over the last decade, even though it was beaten in recent weeks by KHOU’s (Channel 11) Wheel of Fortune at 6:30 p.m. Saturdays. It has been used to best effect in the last couple of years as a means of holding audiences between ABC’s afternoon and prime-time college football games.
Some fans may miss the chat sessions during football and baseball seasons, but, with four sports radio stations in town, the rhetoric will continue unabated elsewhere. Fox Sports Houston also has expanded Houston Sports Beat to twice weekly, so perhaps it would be well-advised to add Extra Points contributors Charlie Pallilo, Ralph Cooper and Kenny Hand to its roster.
If that happens, Extra Points could be Humpty Dumpty by the time August rolls around.
Moving to the radio side, Joe Pogge’s Smokin’ Joe’s Driving Range golf show is moving to 7 a.m. Saturdays on KILT (610 AM). The show most recently appeared on KFNC (97.5 FM) and takes over a Saturday slot previous held by a Texans-related fitness show.
Pogge’s guests Saturday will be Houston Golf Association CEO Steve Timms and former Texas A&M and NFL standout Dave Elmendorf, the general manager at Quail Valley Golf Course.
Up for NBA, no-show for Daytona
Fox Sports lost 48 laps and perhaps as much as a full Nielsen ratings point to last Sunday’s rain at the Daytona 500. The race produced a 9.2 rating and a 19 share, down from 10.2/20 for the full race last year, with an average audience of 16 million viewers.
As usual, Houston lived down to its reputation as one of the nation’s weakest NASCAR markets. Coverage on KRIV (Channel 26) averaged a 4.0 rating and 9 share, which tied for 54th among the 56 major markets. Only New York at 3.3 and San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose at 3.1 ranked lower.
Houston exceeded the national average, however, for the NBA All-Star Game, with a 5.4 Nielsen average to rank 16th among the 56 major markets. TNT’s national average was a 4.1 rating, up 6 percent from last year, and 6.8 million total viewers.
Chuckster’s return
Charles Barkley returned to the air Thursday night with an eight-minute apology for his DUI arrest and a promise that he will never again drink and drive.
"Clearly, everybody knows that I got a DUI. That’s unacceptable," Barkley said prior to TNT’s broadcast of the Spurs-Pistons game. "But it’s 100 percent my fault. I let my family down, clearly. I left TNT down, clearly. I let T-Mobile down, clearly. Also, I let the NBA family down. … All I can say is that will never happen again, and I’m sorry."
Barkley cited several people who called with messages of support, including NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol, Turner Sports executive Jeff Behnke, TNT colleagues Doug Collins and Reggie Miller, Tony Kornheiser and Larry Bird, in addition to strangers who also offered best wishes.
Barkley had to sit out TNT’s All-Star Game coverage Sunday, but his unofficial rehabilitation began as T-Mobile once again began airing commercials featuring Barkley along with Yao Ming, Dwyane Wade and other NBA players.
Meanwhile, Barkley also will be the subject of the Golf Channel’s The Haney Project, hosted by instructor Hank Haney, beginning March 2, The show depicts Haney’s efforts to rehabilitate Barkley’s golf game.
Staying awake at the combine
Drama at the NFL Combine is a relative thing. For example, who can forget the gripping moment a couple of years ago when Calvin Johnson decided on the spur of the moment to run the 40-yard dash and ran 4.35 wearing borrowed shoes?
OK, I don’t remember it, either. Never mind.
At any rate, producer Mark Loomis and his NFL Network colleagues aim to do their best to find gripping, breathtaking footage during 25 hours of combine coverage through next Wednesday. It’s not as challenging as shooting golf, which Loomis did for many years at ABC and ESPN, but the spread-out nature of the workout stations probably makes it more akin to golf than to football.
"It is not an easy event to keep track of," he said. "We’ll have a lot of spotters on the field to help us. There are a lot of moving parts."
NFL Network will employ 13 cameras and 16 analysts, including Jon Gruden, Brian Billick, Steve Mariucci and Charley Casserly, and will use some new speed-based technology from SportVision in an effort to help viewers keep up with things at the 40-yard dash, which passes for the combine’s glamour event.
NFL Network also will stream unofficial workouts across the top of the screen and team needs and biographical information across the bottom.
Loomis and company are enthusiastic about the combine, but they’re realistic, too. They know you’re not likely to watch an entire afternoon of programming, so they’ll try to provide updates each half-hour of the more compelling stories of the day.
If you’re counting, by the way, the list of 320-plus players invited to the combine includes two players from Baylor, nine from LSU, eight from Oklahoma, two from Rice, one from Sam Houston State, one from SMU, one from Stephen F. Austin, four from Texas A&M, two from TCU, five from Texas Tech, five from Texas and two from UTEP.
Four DVRs, no waiting
ESPN’s basketball College GameDay originates from the Erwin Center at the University of Texas at 10 a.m. Saturday. Fans will be admitted beginning at 8 a.m. Dan Schulman and Dick Vitale with Erin Andrews will call the Longhorns-Oklahoma game at 8 p.m. on ESPN. …
Uneven Fairways, the Golf Channel’s measured, informative, just-the-facts documentary on golf’s equivalent of the Negro Leagues before the PGA was integrated, has a few more airings this month at 3 p.m. Saturday, 1 p.m. Monday and 7:30 and 9 p.m. Feb. 28.
You’re as likely to remember the show for its description of players who never made it on the PGA Tour because of segregation, including Teddy Rhodes and Bill Spiller, a graduate of Wiley College in Marshall, as those who did, including Lee Elder, Jim Thorpe and Charlie Sifford. It’s a worthwhile view. …
HBO takes an uncharacteristic trip outside its Northeast comfort zone with Battle for Tobacco Road: Duke vs. Carolina, its latest Sports of the 20th Century documentary, at 8 p.m. Monday. It’s one of HBO’s better efforts of the last three, with some of the whimsy and humor that characterizes the network’s most successful efforts like the original Curse of the Bambino. …
NBC’s Universal Sports says it will expand into Houston during the first quarter but can’t or won’t say where the channel will appear. It’s not going to be as one of KPRC’s (Channel 2) digital channels, since both are occupied. We’ll have updates as they become available.
Meanwhile, Universal Sports has coverage this weekend of the Tyson American Cup gymnastics meet from suburban Chicago, featuring 2008 junior all-around champ Jordyn Wieber of DeWitt, Mich. …
MLB Network starts its first major news initiative today with its 30 Clubs in 30 Days series, opening with the Red Sox at 7 p.m. today. The Astros segment airs at 7 p.m. Sunday, March 1. …
ESPN says viewership is up more than 20 percent in the early afternoon and 10 percent at midmorning from a year ago for the six months it has offered live SportsCenter programs in those time slots. …
Remember the references to the West Coast Update segments on the late, lamented Sports Night sitcom? ESPN cops the idea by stationing Neil Everett and Stan Verrett at its new Left Cost production studio in Los Angeles to host the midnight CST edition of SportsCenter beginning in April. Stuart Scott also will host some SportsCenters from LA. …
KHOU (Channel 11) and the Dynamo kick off their partnership on Channel 11.2 (channel 310 on Comcast) at 6 p.m. today with highlight shows from the 2006 and 2007 MLS Cup finals, tryouts for the team’s dance squads and the Dynamo Insider and Dynamo All-Access shows. The six-hour block also will air at 6 p.m. Saturday and noon Sunday. …
Fox Soccer Channel has exclusive English-language coverage of the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals, including the Dynamo against the Mexican side Atlante at 9 p.m. Tuesday, March 3. …
CBSSports.com has added Microsoft’s Silverlight video player for its March Madness on Demand video streams during the NCAA Tournament. … Jim Nantz was named for the fourth time Thursday as winner of the national sportscaster of the year award from the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.
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