NBC Will Flunk Truth Test at Games

Dick Ebersol, president of NBC sports, dropped by the owners’ box at Oriole Park at Camden Yards during the dedication of Baltimore’s new ballpark and heard someone call his name.

“I looked over and it was Jim McKay,” Ebersol recalled recently. “I said, ‘Jim, if you can get Dennis Swanson (the president of ABC sports) to give you a release, we’ve got room for you on the plane to join us in Barcelona.’ ”

McKay smiled. “You shan’t need me,” he told Ebersol. “I have the utmost faith in the man you are taking as the host. He’s the best man for the job.”

The choice of Bob Costas as the prime-time host of NBC’s Olympic coverage seems to meet with just about everyone’s approval. As long as he avoids such childish antics as that free-throw shooting contest he had with Pat Riley, he should do fine.

Of more concern is how NBC will do.

The network is coming off a dreadful performance at Wimbledon. NBC’s foibles were the talk of the tournament. The network, acting as if it had never heard of rain in London, was unprepared for the inevitable delays and delivered aborted coverage.

The worst part was missing the end of the women’s final, which actually finished before NBC went off the air in the West, where tape-delayed coverage was still being shown. But NBC didn’t show the conclusion of the women’s final until the next day. And the end of the exciting men’s doubles final wasn’t shown at all.

NBC, among other things, also was criticized for not making it clear what was live--at least live in the East--and what was on tape. NBC was accused, essentially, of lying to its audience.

Now, with the Olympics upon us, how honest will NBC be?

Not very. NBC admits that it will purposely deceive viewers.

NBC will pretend the coverage is live, even though everything from Barcelona, which is nine hours ahead of Los Angeles and six hours ahead of New York, will be tape-delayed.

NBC will not report any results until an event has been telecast. There will be no news-of-the-day wrapups at the beginning of the telecasts. NBC will start its daily Olympic packages with event coverage.

The no-results policy might not be a bad one. Most viewers don’t want to know the results of an event they will be watching. Complaints are still coming in about NBC’s Dick Enberg naming the men’s finalists at Wimbledon before the semifinals were shown.

Even so, journalistic integrity should have some place in the network’s thinking. There are ways of warning viewers that they may not want to hear the results that are going to be broadcast.

But where NBC is erring most, it seems, is in not dealing honestly with its audience. Why pretend the coverage is live when it isn’t? Why not let viewers know that what they’re watching happened six or nine hours earlier.

In explaining the network’s philosophy, Terry O’Neil, executive producer of NBC sports, said the aim is to tell a series of stories, from beginning to end.

“When you put your children to bed at night, they don’t ask you to start out by telling them the end of a story,” O’Neil said.

No, but then we aren’t children, either.

Since just about everything is being delayed anyway, NBC’s Olympic time blocks will be the same in the East and West.

Prime time will run from 7:30 p.m. to midnight in both New York and Los Angeles. The morning block, with Dick Enberg and Katie Couric serving as co-hosts, will be 7-10 a.m. The late-night block, with Jim Lampley and Hannah Storm, will be 12:35-2:05 a.m.

Weekend coverage will be a little different. Usually, the weekend daytime coverage will run from noon to 6 p.m. However, on Sunday, Aug. 2, and Sunday, Aug. 9, there will be additional 8-11 a.m. time blocks. Also, all three Sunday prime-time shows will begin at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.

TripleCast update: Problems, problems, problems. And the Games haven’t even begun.

Several Southern California cable systems are not able to offer the TripleCast, depriving some who have tried to order it. Clearing three pay-per-view channels was a problem for some of them.

That’s problem No. 1.

Here’s another. For those who have been led to believe that the pay-per-view coverage of the Olympics will all be live during the 2 a.m.-2 p.m. block, think again.

Upon closer inspection of the TripleCast schedule, there are track and field preliminaries that are listed as tape-delayed or joined in progress. Worse yet, there are boxing finals listed as tape-delayed.

How judiciously tape-delayed events will be inserted into live coverage remains to be seen. Because this kind of thing has never been tried before, there undoubtedly will be snafus.

Add TripleCast: Ordering the TripleCast is no piece of cake. In fact, calling 1-800 OLYMPICS is a real adventure.

You will end up pressing more buttons than a keyboard operator. You will get recording after recording, asking you to punch in, among other things, your name, address, hometown, zip code, phone number and credit card number.

It’s actually easier to go to your cable company’s office and order. At least there is no waiting in line. Cablevision of Arcadia, a typical system, is selling about three packages a day.

Another advantage of ordering in person is avoiding a $10 processing charge.

Most systems report the $125 package is the only one selling. Actually, with sales tax, it’s $131.25.

Radio coverage: KMPC will carry live NBC radio reports from Barcelona 15 minutes after the hour, every hour from 2:15 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., plus two or three hours of continuous coverage, beginning at 10 a.m. most days. On Sunday, KMPC will carry the U.S.-Angola basketball game live at 7:30 a.m.

Also, Lampley will be reporting from Barcelona from 1:30 to at least 2:30 p.m. on weekdays.

TV-Radio Notes

Now that Robert W. Morgan has left KMPC, who will get his morning spot? Pat Butram gave listeners a big hint the other day when he asked, “Now what do we say, ‘Good Lampley?’ ” The station would like to move its star, Jim Lampley, into the morning slot when he returns from Barcelona. The question is, will Lampley accept those early morning hours? It may take more money than KMPC is willing to offer. . . . If Lampley does take the morning job, then Joe McDonnell and Doug Krikorian probably will move to Lampley’s afternoon spot, where they are now, filling in. . . . Fred Wallin, who has been working the mid-day show with The Times’ Thomas Bonk this week, may end up getting off the graveyard shift. Wallin is knowledgeable and lively, but his problem is an abrasive personality. He seems to be angry about half the time.

Scott St. James, who was Morgan’s sidekick in the mornings, has taken over Chris Roberts’ role as mid-day reporter while Roberts and Brian Golden do the morning show on an interim basis. Regarding his new role, St. James said: “Like anyone else, I tend to resist change unless it is my idea. But then I realized I will no longer have to get up at 1:45 a.m., and I will again have a social life. This will be fine.” St. James, upset that Morgan didn’t inform him that he was jumping ship and going to KRTH, had this to say about his longtime friend: “Robert W. is the Ross Perot of radio. When things got hot, he quit.”

Morgan was a big loser in the last radio rating period, April 2 to June 24. His numbers went from 2.7 (67,400 listeners) to 1.4 (34,4000). Morgan should do a lot better at KRTH, where he starts playing oldies and doing his thing on Aug. 24. He was miscast at KMPC when the station changed to an all-sports format. . . . KABC’s Steve Edwards was a big winner in the last radio rating period. The arrival of the baseball season no doubt helped, but it also appears that listeners are gravitating to Edwards while KMPC and XTRA battle it out. Edwards, who has a general talk show from 3 to 5 and a sports-talk show from 5 to 7, went from a 1.8 rating (an average of 36,500 listeners, 12 and over, every quarter-hour increment) to a 3.7 (61,200) for the four-hour time block. Both the general talk show and sports-talk shows improved about equally.

Last add radio rating ratings: XTRA’s Lee Hamilton, who seems to have a strong following in Los Angeles, just can’t seem to get the numbers, try as he might. His L.A. rating in the 12-and-over demographic group, the largest one, was 0.7 (14,800 listeners). But program director Howard Freedman says men, 25-54, is a more important category. There, Hamilton got a 1.7 in Los Angeles, same as KMPC in the 3-7 p.m. time period. . . . XTRA’s night-time host, energetic Jim Rome, sent a fax claiming his rating in the men, 18-34, group went from a 0.9 to a 4.6 in San Diego. . . . In Los Angeles, XTRA’s overall average in the 12-and-over group remains a low 0.4. The main problem San Diego-based XTRA faces is, it tries to be both a San Diego and Los Angeles station. Most people in Los Angeles don’t care about San Diego sports.

Two radio sports talk shows that sometimes get forgotten are Gary Owens’ “Sportsnuts” weeknights at 6 on KLAC and Irv Kaze’s “Talking Sports” Fridays at 7 p.m. on KIEV. Kaze’s weekly show also is repeated Mondays at 8:30 p.m. . . . Among Kaze’s guests tonight will be Jimmy Connors, who will talk about his pay-per-view match with Martina Navratilova Sept. 25 at Caesars Palace. . . . A special entitled “Beating the Odds” will be televised on SportsChannel Sunday night at 8:30. No, it’s not a gambling show. Bob Wieland, who overcame the odds by competing in marathons after losing both legs in Vietnam, is the co-host with Harvey Hyde, former Nevada Las Vegas football coach. Athletes who have beaten the odds are profiled.