Oops: Channels 2 and 7 Show Same Game, at Least for a While

Channel 7, scheduled to show the Big Eight tournament championship game between Oklahoma and Kansas State Sunday at 1 p.m., instead showed the Pacific 10 tournament final between Arizona and Oregon State.

That normally might have been OK, but the Pac-10 game was also on Channel 2 Sunday, although delayed about 35 minutes.

So Big Eight fans in the Los Angeles area weren’t thrilled by Channel 7’s choice. The complaint calls started coming into Channel 7, and to its credit, the station eventually switched to the Big Eight game about 1:50 p.m.

Was Channel 7 trying to upstage Channel 2 by showing the Pac-10 game live, or was it simply an error in judgment by Channel 7? A call to the station got a “no comment.”

Meanwhile, Channel 2 also irritated viewers Sunday. With the delayed Pac-10 telecast lasting until after 3:30, the station had to show the CBS coverage of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament pairings announcement on a one-hour delay. So viewers wanting immediacy--very important in this case--didn’t get it.

Channel 2 carried the Pac-10 title game because it is part of the Raycom-produced Pac-10 package the station has purchased the past two years.