Full Version: OLN to offer opening night to all cable/sat. providers
Was just reading a story off of NHL.com, where OLN is going to offer the opening night game season of the NHL, Flyers/Rangers, to all cable/satellite providers whether they receive OLN or not. Its pretty obvious in reading the story how excited they are about the upcoming season, as am I. Fortunately I already receive OLN in my expanded basic plan with Comcast. Drop the damn puck already!!!
From the website of OLN, www.olntv.com:
Also, OLN's promotion of the NHL is centered around the tagline \"We Believe in Hockey.\"
[ October 03, 2005, 08:44 PM: Message edited by: Joe in Philly ]
QUOTE
On October 5, when OLN presents the Rangers vs. Flyers in Philadelphia, viewers are going to witness a whole new game. But first, they’ll witness OLN’s new studio show, hosted by NHL All-Stars and hockey experts Bill Clement and Keith Jones. OLN’s special opening night pre-game show will begin at 7 p.m. ET, after the network presents NHL All Access: The 2005 NHL Entry Draft at 5:30 p.m. ET.
Clement and Jones will host the opening night pre-game show, which will include an overall season preview and look-ins to Tampa Bay, when the Lightning raise their Stanley Cup Banner from the 2003-04 season, and to New Jersey, where Sidney Crosby will make his much-anticipated debut on the ice. When the puck drops for the Rangers/Flyers game, lead OLN analyst John Davidson and expert play-by-play announcer Sam Rosen will call the game with reporter Bob Harwood.
The studio show, which will normally air as a post-game show after OLN’s Monday and Tuesday night games, will include highlights from other games around the league, news and updates, expanded game analysis and extensive profiles of the players throughout the league. Clement and Jones will be joined by Pierre McGuire on Monday nights, while Neil Smith will join the show both nights as the exclusive NHL “insider.”
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One of the most innovative aspects on the set of the studio show will be a unique \"demonstration zone,” which will allow the hosts to exhibit a step-by-step replay in real time of how a play developed, from start to finish, and examine the reason for its success or failure. This will not only educate the viewer on the rules – and new rules – of the game, but will also teach younger fans the proper techniques involved in executing a successful play.
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NHL All Access: The 2005 NHL Entry Draft, which will precede the Pre-Game Show, gives fans an unparalleled behind-the-scenes look at the 2005 draft, where hockey phenom Sidney Crosby was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins. The show gets up close and personal with Crosby, along with the game’s other top prospects - Jack Johnson, Benoit Pouliot and Bobby Ryan. NHL All Access: The 2005 NHL Entry Draft will air at 5:30 p.m. ET on Weds., Oct. 5 and will re-air at 5:30 p.m. ET on Mon., Oct. 10 before Crosby’s national television debut during the Pittsburgh at Buffalo game.
I'm not sure why Mike Emrick isn't working the network's first game. But you can participate in an online chat with him at the OLN site tomorrow night at 9 pm ET.Clement and Jones will host the opening night pre-game show, which will include an overall season preview and look-ins to Tampa Bay, when the Lightning raise their Stanley Cup Banner from the 2003-04 season, and to New Jersey, where Sidney Crosby will make his much-anticipated debut on the ice. When the puck drops for the Rangers/Flyers game, lead OLN analyst John Davidson and expert play-by-play announcer Sam Rosen will call the game with reporter Bob Harwood.
The studio show, which will normally air as a post-game show after OLN’s Monday and Tuesday night games, will include highlights from other games around the league, news and updates, expanded game analysis and extensive profiles of the players throughout the league. Clement and Jones will be joined by Pierre McGuire on Monday nights, while Neil Smith will join the show both nights as the exclusive NHL “insider.”
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One of the most innovative aspects on the set of the studio show will be a unique \"demonstration zone,” which will allow the hosts to exhibit a step-by-step replay in real time of how a play developed, from start to finish, and examine the reason for its success or failure. This will not only educate the viewer on the rules – and new rules – of the game, but will also teach younger fans the proper techniques involved in executing a successful play.
-----
NHL All Access: The 2005 NHL Entry Draft, which will precede the Pre-Game Show, gives fans an unparalleled behind-the-scenes look at the 2005 draft, where hockey phenom Sidney Crosby was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins. The show gets up close and personal with Crosby, along with the game’s other top prospects - Jack Johnson, Benoit Pouliot and Bobby Ryan. NHL All Access: The 2005 NHL Entry Draft will air at 5:30 p.m. ET on Weds., Oct. 5 and will re-air at 5:30 p.m. ET on Mon., Oct. 10 before Crosby’s national television debut during the Pittsburgh at Buffalo game.
Also, OLN's promotion of the NHL is centered around the tagline \"We Believe in Hockey.\"
QUOTE
The campaign was developed to convey the commitment and passion of hockey fans, while igniting excitement for the new season. In the series of 30-second television spots, clips of memorable hockey footage are accompanied by a voiceover of thousands of fans declaring statements like: “we believe we can score on the opening face-off” and “we believe in the unbelievable.”
You can view the TV ad at their website. Also, here's a link to a print ad to appear in various papers.[ October 03, 2005, 08:44 PM: Message edited by: Joe in Philly ]
Less than 12 hours before the puck drops........tick..tick..tick... wink
I'm ready!
LET'S GO RANGERS!
LET'S GO RANGERS!
How lovely to have picked up the LA Times Sports section, turned to page two, where one finds "Today on TV & Radio" and see:
Hockey:
4 p.m. (pdt) New York Rangers at Philadelphia OLN (reshown, 8 p.m.)
5:30 p.m. (pdt) Kings at Dallas, FSNW, 1260
5:30 p.m. (pdt) Mighty Ducks at Chicago, FSNW2, 1090.
Is it just me or does the air smell sweeter today? :cool:
~Adam
Hockey:
4 p.m. (pdt) New York Rangers at Philadelphia OLN (reshown, 8 p.m.)
5:30 p.m. (pdt) Kings at Dallas, FSNW, 1260
5:30 p.m. (pdt) Mighty Ducks at Chicago, FSNW2, 1090.
Is it just me or does the air smell sweeter today? :cool:
~Adam
Adam, everything is sweeter today!!!!
T minus less than 4 hours to broadcast....... wink 
Was it just me or did a lot of hockey fans call in sick to catch as many games on Center Ice as possible?
Cough Cough.. wink
Today is a GREAT day and GO DUCKS!
Anyone else going to try and catch Sidney Crosby's first game? I think I'll tune it to see what all the hype is about, altough I would have liked to see him in a Ducks uniform
Cough Cough.. wink
Today is a GREAT day and GO DUCKS!
Anyone else going to try and catch Sidney Crosby's first game? I think I'll tune it to see what all the hype is about, altough I would have liked to see him in a Ducks uniform
I don't have Center Ice because I don't have digital cable. I'll have to settle for the Flyers and Rangers. wink
65 minutes to hockey!!!!!
Random thoughts from the first few minutes of coverage:
--Were the studio announcers voices out of synch? Sort of like watching a Japanese horror film that's been badly dubbed.
--Bill Clement has to regrow his porn 'stache
--ESPN News has decided to make Thursday nights "Hockey Night" and will feature Melrose (not Joe's favorite) and Buccigross (my penpal/stalker) in-studio offering highlights and analysis interspesed with highlights/news from other sports
--Love the crawl at the bootom of the screen offering scores from other games
(Embarrassed about this...) Was thrilled to see Kerry Fraser--and his hair--on the ice for the Rangers/Flyers game!
~Adam
--Were the studio announcers voices out of synch? Sort of like watching a Japanese horror film that's been badly dubbed.
--Bill Clement has to regrow his porn 'stache
--ESPN News has decided to make Thursday nights "Hockey Night" and will feature Melrose (not Joe's favorite) and Buccigross (my penpal/stalker) in-studio offering highlights and analysis interspesed with highlights/news from other sports
--Love the crawl at the bootom of the screen offering scores from other games
(Embarrassed about this...) Was thrilled to see Kerry Fraser--and his hair--on the ice for the Rangers/Flyers game!
~Adam
OLN is definitely a work in progress. The mix between the voices of the broadcasters and the arena and on-ice sound is poor -- it sounded muddled at times, making it harder to focus on what the broadcasters were saying. It wasn't helped by the addition of music on every replay.
I didn't realize that Bill Clement is essentially taking the Buccigross role in the studio. His hockey expertise doesn't come through as well if he's got to run the show, throwing it to and coming back from commercial, doing the highlights of other games, etc. And they definitely didn't have the smoothest transitions from the studio segments back to the game. On the other hand, there wasn't quite the usual bombardment of graphics with statistics and promos that ESPN and other networks employ.
Overall I'd give the broadcast a B-minus.
I didn't realize that Bill Clement is essentially taking the Buccigross role in the studio. His hockey expertise doesn't come through as well if he's got to run the show, throwing it to and coming back from commercial, doing the highlights of other games, etc. And they definitely didn't have the smoothest transitions from the studio segments back to the game. On the other hand, there wasn't quite the usual bombardment of graphics with statistics and promos that ESPN and other networks employ.
Overall I'd give the broadcast a B-minus.
A little rough around the edges, but give them a few games, and I think they will be fine. Overall I give them a solid B. I had to laugh about Adam's lip sync comments. I too saw that and thought what the hell??? eek!
[ October 05, 2005, 07:16 PM: Message edited by: puckman1 ]
[ October 05, 2005, 07:16 PM: Message edited by: puckman1 ]
I posted this on Jock Talk:
It was also the TV debut of the Outdoor Life Network as the carrier of NHL games. What I saw the first night was not a good sign. The production values and sets were more worthy of a cable access channel and the picture quality was nowhere near as sharp as I get on ESPN or Fox Sports (and I have satellite, which has terrific quality). I’ll be curious as to what hockey fans think of the coverage
It was also the TV debut of the Outdoor Life Network as the carrier of NHL games. What I saw the first night was not a good sign. The production values and sets were more worthy of a cable access channel and the picture quality was nowhere near as sharp as I get on ESPN or Fox Sports (and I have satellite, which has terrific quality). I’ll be curious as to what hockey fans think of the coverage
While I saw some major potential on OLN last night, they have some major bugs to work out. It reminded me of some of the coverage that you see from some of the smaller market teams when you subscribe to NHL Center Ice. The guys in the studio obviously know their stuff, and will improve with each broadcast. Remember that OLN's coverage of the Tour de France was not exactly sparkling stuff at first. As far as the play-by-play coverage, well I am a Ranger fan, and I am quite familiar with the professional work of Sam Rosen and John Davidson on MSG. They were as great as always. I was a bit surprised by the quality of the picture and the sound. Hopefully, these problems will be straightened out as the season progresses.
Yeah, I noticed the sound issues pretty well. As far as the picture, I don't recall it being too bad really. If I had hd available, I would have loved to see the picture then. This was their first broadcast so give them time. I would tend to agree about the studio. Can you say sterile?
Keith Jones called into the WIP morning show (where he sits in a couple of days per week) and they were getting on him about the cheap studio set. He said it was thrown together in about 3 weeks' time. Al Morganti compared it to his little girl's old toy kitchen, or something like that. It was pretty cheap and tacky -- you could see the wheels on Neil Smith's chair! Speaking of which, Neil Smith was the weak link last night from what I saw.
As Joe posted earlier in this thread, Bill Clement's skills aren't being used to their fullest advantage. It's obvious he's not used to managing the flow of a show or taking time cues (a couple of times last night, he seemed to rush the toss to the game) and he wasn't smooth in his attempts to work both Smith and Jones into discussions. OLN would be wise to look to bring in a more seasoned broadcaster to guide the in-studio show. Even if he isn't specifically a hockey guy, a generic sports guy would have an easierr time with managing the flow and minding the floor manager/producer & Clement would be freed to offer more insight/analysis/color. Overall, the production values for the studio show are amatuerish; it was the sort of thing one could expect from a high school audio-visual club to do when producing School News.
~Adam
~Adam
EchoStar pulls OLN after failing to show NHL games
Can it get any worse... a dispute between two telecommunications parties prevents people from seeing hockey.
How long before the NHL tries to break this dog of a contract?
Can it get any worse... a dispute between two telecommunications parties prevents people from seeing hockey.
How long before the NHL tries to break this dog of a contract?
Oh, it does indeed get worse. From an article in the LA Daily News, the NHL is "disappointed" in both the production values and the ratings for games sired on their new broadcast partner, OLN. Numbers indicate that under 175,000 televisions have been tuned into the nationally broadcast Monday night games [does this meqan there are 175,000 OutSports hockey fans? ] and the NHL has asked OLN executives to coordinate with NHL officials to improve the quality of the production. However, there is a ray of sunshine in all this: ratings for local/regional coverage have remained stable from the 2003/2004 season.
Last night on ESPN News (Thursdays are "Hockey Night on ESPN News") offered a prime example of how a studio show should be done: lots of highlights, solid explanations of the effect of the rule changes on various aspects of the game, viewer e-mails (a good discussion of the new penalty against instigators in the final five minutes of a game in response to a viewer's question) and hockey-related guests (last night: three newspaper reporters from across the US who talked about what their teams are doing to retain/gron crowds.) In addition, Barry Melrose got a few digs in at the OLN production: during highlights he referred to the "high production values you've come to expect when ESPN does hockey," and when the anchor (don't know his name but he looks like Richie Rich) had trouble with a couple of names, Melrose quipped: "Are you sure you aren't part of the OLN crew?"
~Adam
] and the NHL has asked OLN executives to coordinate with NHL officials to improve the quality of the production. However, there is a ray of sunshine in all this: ratings for local/regional coverage have remained stable from the 2003/2004 season.Last night on ESPN News (Thursdays are "Hockey Night on ESPN News") offered a prime example of how a studio show should be done: lots of highlights, solid explanations of the effect of the rule changes on various aspects of the game, viewer e-mails (a good discussion of the new penalty against instigators in the final five minutes of a game in response to a viewer's question) and hockey-related guests (last night: three newspaper reporters from across the US who talked about what their teams are doing to retain/gron crowds.) In addition, Barry Melrose got a few digs in at the OLN production: during highlights he referred to the "high production values you've come to expect when ESPN does hockey," and when the anchor (don't know his name but he looks like Richie Rich) had trouble with a couple of names, Melrose quipped: "Are you sure you aren't part of the OLN crew?"
~Adam
Comcast which owns OLN is trying to pull one over on the providers (which is ironic since Comcast is the largest cable TV provider in the nation itself) by siwtching the contents available on OLN and therefore defacto forcing echostar and others to carry programming they have chosen not to.
I'm no fan of Charlie Ergen. He's a dick. but what Comcast is trying to do.... well... they got what they had coming when Ergen pulled OLN off the feeds.
I'm no fan of Charlie Ergen. He's a dick. but what Comcast is trying to do.... well... they got what they had coming when Ergen pulled OLN off the feeds.
The last two weeks, the Philadelphia Daily News haven't even listed the OLN games in their daily listings of radio/TV broadcasts in the sports section. No idea why.
I'm shocked that I was so optimistic about Comcast gaining the NHL rights when it was announced initially. It's turning into a disaster.
I'm shocked that I was so optimistic about Comcast gaining the NHL rights when it was announced initially. It's turning into a disaster.
The LA Daily News has stopped listing the OLN game. Neither it or the LA Times ever had OLN listed in their TV magazines, but both had been listing the OLN game in their sports section's "Today on TV." The Times continues to list the game (today Detroit at Columbus.) I'm going to treat the game as I do the world series: hit mute and just watch the game.
~Adam
~Adam
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