You Can’t Be Sure of Anything If It’s on Group W Cable

In its battle against satellite dishes, the cable industry is sometimes its own worst enemy.

Consider what Group W did recently. On Tuesday of last week, with Prime Ticket televising a UCLA-Pepperdine baseball game at 7 p.m., Group Wrong--that is what the W stands for, isn’t it?--didn’t pick up the coverage until 8:15, when the game was in the middle of the fifth inning.

But that was nothing compared to what happened two nights later. With the UCLA basketball team playing California, delayed coverage was scheduled to begin at 9 p.m., after a telecast of the hockey game between the Kings and the Philadelphia Flyers.

But Group W, which is owned by Westinghouse, didn’t start showing the UCLA game until 9:30, then left it for good midway through the second half to rejoin the Nashville Network.

“They had a problem with their switcher,” said Tony Acone, the president of Prime Ticket. “Whenever you have humans and equipment involved, sometimes there are mistakes.

“I’ve been in the cable business long enough to realize that. I’m not going to point a finger at Group W and say, ‘It’s their fault, it’s their fault.’

“I have talked to their people and have been assured the problem has been taken care of. Now, I think, we should sit back and see if problems still exist before criticizing them.

“I don’t think they should be taken out and shot at dawn.”

No, just a good flogging would do.

Add cable woes: Reader Harry Shearer writes: “Many of us are cable subscribers as well as dish owners. Thus, we have a continuing opportunity to compare the picture and sound quality of the two.

“Before the gentlemen from Prime Ticket, for example, go any further down the road to scrambling, they should consider this fact: Anyone who has invested considerable money in a high-quality television receiver simply will choose to watch Prime Ticket off satellite every time, in preference to the grainy, color-drained, soft-focus picture we get from, for example, Group W.

“If the choice is either continuing to subscribe to cable or disconnect in order to pay for a descrambler, I know what the choice will be.”

Programming blunders, bad reception and bad service have plagued much of the cable industry since its inception. Unless a concerted effort is made to correct such problems, cable television may someday become obsolete, and operators will look back and ask, “Where did we go wrong?”

The double-hitter: The boxing doubleheader matching Marvelous Marvin Hagler against John (the Beast) Mugabi, and Tommy Hearns against James Shuler at Caesars Palace March 10 will be televised on a pay-per-view basis.

Choice Channel of Century City is providing the card, which also includes an attractive Richie Sandoval-Gaby Canizales fight, to 40 addressable cable systems in Southern California, including Cox Cable in San Diego, and an additional 110 systems throughout the country. SelecTV is also offering the fights.

The total of 150 cable systems, representing 3.6 million subscribers, is a pay-per-view record. The previous record was 125 systems, representing 2.6 million subscribers, for the Roberto Duran-Hagler fight in November of 1984.

Cost for the March 10 show is $15 through today, then it goes to $20.

The Beverly Hills Theater and the Irvine Marriott are among the closed-circuit establishments offering the fights, and a number of sports bar-restaurants have obtained rights through Satellite Programming Service of Redondo Beach. The restaurants pay $8 a head plus $650 for a decoder. Yes, the signals will be scrambled.

Restaurants carrying the fight include Legends, Players and Yankee Doodles in Long Beach; 12 Red Onions; Hamburger Hamlets in Brentwood, Pasadena and Costa Mesa; the Sports Deli in Century City, and Tom’s Burger in Carson. At most places, the admission charge will be $10.

Recommended viewing: On “Wide World of Sports” Sunday, ABC will offer coverage of the fourth “Race Across America,” a transcontinental bicycle event.

The last three years, ABC has broken up the coverage in two one-hour segments. This year, the race was covered in one two-hour show, beginning at 3 p.m.

Jonathan Boyer, the best-known of the 25 cyclists in the race, traveled first class, accompanied by his personal acupuncturist, and slept in comfortable motels while others slept along the roadside. He said the acupuncture treatments allowed him to get by on 1 1/2 hours of sleep a night.

Wayne Phillips of Vancouver, on the other hand, was the only competitor traveling alone, without a support van. Tragically, Phillips was struck down by a truck at 2 one morning near Tucumcari, N.M., in a hit-and-run accident that left him paralyzed.

Bad timing: Just before the end of last Sunday’s Laker-Philadephia game, CBS’ Dick Stockton announced that the 76ers’ Charles Barkley was the game’s Miller Lite MVP.

Then Magic Johnson, who scored 34 points to Barkley’s 24, connected on a three-pointer to tie the game, and the Lakers won in overtime.

If a network can’t wait until the end of a game to announce an MVP, it should forget it.

College woes: How badly has college basketball’s popularity slipped in Southern California? Consider this: Last Saturday’s USC-UCLA game drew a Nielsen rating of only 4.5, while figure skating on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” later in the day drew an 8.6.

The top L.A. rating of the weekend was a 9.8 for the Laker-76er game.

Notes ESPN is offering live coverage of Sunday’s Santa Anita Handicap, beginning at 4:30 p.m. . . . Eddie Arcaro, two-time winner of the Big ‘Cap, will be on “Big ‘Cap Round Table,” a live one-hour special on Channel 56 tonight at 9. . . . After the special, there will be taped coverage of last Monday night’s Jaime Garza-Arnel Arrozal fight at the Irvine Marriott. Channel 56 is carrying the fights at Irvine on a regular basis. . . . Saturday at 4:30 p.m., coverage of last Tuesday night’s title fight between Azumah Nelson and Marcos Villasana at the Forum will be televised on the “SCORE” program on the Financial News Network. . . . ABC offers Tyrell Biggs-Jeff Sims on “Wide World of Sports” Saturday at 4:30 p.m. and Mark Breland-Richard Aguirre Sunday at 2 p.m. Both fights are live in the East and delayed three hours in the West. The Breland-Aguirre bout replaces a fight between Cornelius Boza-Edwards and Terrence Alli, which was postponed because of a training camp injury to Boza-Edwards. . . . Coming fights on HBO: Pinklon Thomas-Trevor Berbick March 22, Larry Holmes-Michael Spinks April 19.

The Clippers’ game at Milwaukee last Tuesday night was televised live, but tonight’s game at Boston will be shown on Channel 5 on a delayed basis at 6 p.m., and that’s unfortunate. Live telecasts from the East are one way for the Clippers to show up the Lakers, who still insist on outmoded tape-delayed telecasts. . . . Beginning Saturday, Prime Ticket will televise “Racing From Santa Anita” at 10:30 p.m. instead of at 10:15. The shows will sometimes be shown even later, particularly when a King home game is televised. . . . Pete Maravich will work Saturday’s UCLA-DePaul game for NBC with Don Criqui. Coverage will begin at noon. . . . NBC’s second “Sports Fantasies” show will be televised Sunday at noon on “SportsWorld.” Len Berman is the host. . . . Former Angel and Channel 5 sportscaster Joe Buttitta is working for the Bank of Granada Hills as director of its sports and entertainment division. . . . John Drew, the first player banned from the NBA because of drugs, will be interviewed at his home in Casper, Wyo., on “When the Cheering Stops” during WTBS’ “Coors Sports Page” Sunday at 7:05 p.m. . . . In a restructuring of ABC Sports, Dennis Lewin and Steve Solomon Thursday were named senior vice presidents. . . . Channel 11 will carry live coverage of the final round of the GNA/Glendale Federal women’s golf tournament at the Oakmont Golf and Country Club in Glendale March 16. . . . Channel 5 will carry the Goodwill Games July 5-20 at Moscow.