TV-RADIO / LARRY STEWART : The World of Sports Has Grown Too Wide for One ESPN

In 1979, a Connecticut outfit started a 24-hour all-sports cable channel called the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.

The big problem then was finding enough programming to fill 24 hours. The network, called ESPN for short--that’s now the official name--opened with a slow-pitch softball telecast.

When it had something as significant as a college football or basketball game, it would repeat it three or four times.

Nowadays, the problem isn’t finding programming. It’s finding an outlet for so much programming.

About two years ago, ESPN began planning a second channel, ESPN2. It makes its debut today in about 10 million of the nation’s 60 million cable households. As more cable systems are updated and rebuilt, ESPN2 will become more widespread.

Actually, in the Los Angeles area, most cable systems will carry ESPN2. Continental in West L.A. is one of the major systems not offering it.

And most systems not offering it have agreed to start carrying it as soon as they have the channel capacity.

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Surplus programming is only one reason ESPN started a second channel. Another is to offer things that appeal to the 18-34 age group, the MTV set if you will.

The question is, will enough of the MTV set switch over to the likes of Keith Olbermann and Jim Rome?

Olbermann is the main host of ESPN2’s “SportsNight,” a three-hour show at 4:30 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Suzy Kolber and Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom will also be a part of the show.

XTRA’s Rome is the host of “Talk2,” a one-hour show that will be on weeknights at 7:30. Rome’s first guest will be Wayne Gretzky. Mike Piazza and Vlade Divac will be on Monday’s show.

Hockey will be the mainstay sport for ESPN2. There will be games three nights a week. The first NHL telecast, Hartford at Montreal, is scheduled for Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.

Is there really room for another sports channel? What’s next, TNT2?

Time will tell if ESPN2 makes it. However, whatever ESPN does usually succeeds.

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Talk radio: Don’t you just love it.

On Tuesday, KMPC’s Fred Wallin joked, “There he goes, hitting her again,” accompanied by crashing sound effects, while discussing Barry Bonds’ allegedly throwing his wife down stairs.

Bonds has been convicted of nothing, and his agent, Dennis Gilbert, denied that Bonds threw his wife down the stairs during a domestic argument.

“He is making something out of nothing,” Gilbert said. “No charges were filed. In my opinion, Fred Wallin has a history of being reckless. His show is more comical than informational.”

On the same show, Paola Boivin, after breaking up while reading a commercial, said she tried to stop laughing by “thinking of my dead cat.” Nice.

Down at XTRA, Rome last week was so rude during an interview with Terry Donahue that the UCLA coach said he would never go back on the radio with Rome.

The topper of them all, however, was Lee Hamilton. He called Fritz Quindt, San Diego Union-Tribune TV-radio columnist, a “faggot,” which left Quindt unamused and brought protests from gay and lesbian groups.

Quindt had written that Hamilton, the Chargers’ play-by-play announcer, could have shown more enthusiasm when calling John Carney’s record 26th consecutive field goal in the second quarter of an 18-17 victory over Houston.

When a caller to Hamilton’s talk show asked him about it, Hamilton went berserk.

“I lost it, I admit that, and I shouldn’t have said what I said (about Quindt),” Hamilton said. “But every week he looks for something to rip me about.”

Hamilton said the feud goes back six months to when Quindt printed his real name, which is listed in the phone book.

“After that, my family had 24 obscene calls in four days,” Hamilton said. “I thought he went over the line when he got into my personal life.”

On Monday, after Hamilton apologized for his remark, an apology that Quindt called very weak, Quindt’s wife, Linda, called in to demand that Hamilton also apologize to their family. Hamilton cut her off.

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Baseball blackouts: The Dodgers’ series against the San Francisco Giants is big, particularly if you’re a Giant fan. Saturday’s noon game, courtesy of CBS, will be televised in Los Angeles, and ESPN will show Sunday’s 1 p.m. game, a national telecast, here.

Tonight’s game is being televised to most of the nation by ESPN, but can’t be shown here because of weekday blackout rules. Instead, the alternate game, Chicago at San Diego, will be shown.

The main first game of the doubleheader is Colorado at Atlanta, with Toronto at Baltimore the alternate. Cable systems with the savvy and ability to do so can pick up the main feed for the first game, then switch to the alternate for the second.

So some cable systems, the good ones, will show Colorado-Atlanta at 4:30. The schlocky ones will show Toronto-Baltimore.

Tonight’s and Sunday’s Colorado-Atlanta games will be on TBS. Saturday’s game is being televised by CBS, but the West Coast gets the Dodgers-Giants.

TV-Radio Notes

If there is a one-game playoff between the Giants and Braves on Monday, it will be at San Francisco at 7:30 p.m. and will be televised by ESPN. CBS radio will also carry it. . . . There was fear that some cable companies would discontinue carrying CBS television stations on Wednesday, the second day of the baseball playoffs, because they had failed to reach an agreement for retransmission consent. Over-the-air local stations are asking cable companies to pay for their signal, same as they pay for cable networks. This is a major issue in the television business, stemming from the Cable Act of 1992, and Wednesday is the deadline for agreements to be made. But CBS decided this week to pull out of the fray and not ask cable companies to pay for its signal. NBC and ABC stations are hopeful of having agreements with most systems before the deadline.

Thursday’s night Dodger-Giant game was the second this season broadcast locally in four languages--English, Spanish, Korean and Chinese. . . . Ross Porter and Rick Monday will look back at the Dodger season in a one-hour special on KABC radio Wednesday at 6 p.m. . . . Speaking of Monday, he has been tremendous since coming in under dire circumstances after the death of Don Drysdale. The Dodgers would be wise to sign Monday as their permanent No. 3 announcer.

KMPC, to its credit, will have Dodger reporter Larry Kahn covering the National League playoffs and Angel reporter Geoff Biggs the American League. The station has to pay their expenses, which is different from the regular season, when some of the reporters’ travel expenses are absorbed by the clubs. KMPC and the Dodgers have a trade-out agreement, meaning the Dodgers get a certain amount of promotional consideration in exchange for travel. KMPC pays for hotels and meals. Since the Angels and KMPC are both owned by Gene Autry, the team covers all of Biggs’ travel. Newspapers such as The Times pay all reporters’ traveling expenses, thus some have not traveled with the teams on recent trips, after they had fallen out of contention.

ABC’s pay-per-view college football telecasts Saturday are being offered at 9 a.m. rather than the usual 12:30 p.m. There is no over-the-air ABC game at 9 a.m. ABC will show Notre Dame-Stanford to the nation at 12:30, followed at 4 p.m. by a regional telecast, USC at Arizona. Mark Jones and Tim Brant will call the USC game. . . . Georgia Tech-Florida State, one of the ABC pay-per-view games, will be broadcast on radio by KMPC at 9 a.m. The broadcast is supplied by Malibu-based Radio Sports Creations, a national sports radio network started two years ago by Warren Williamson. Williamson, an Oregon State basketball player in the late ‘70s, got into the radio packaging business in 1988, when he set up a four-station network for the Santa Barbara Islanders of the Continental Basketball Assn. His Radio Sports Creations, which carries mostly Atlantic Coast Conference football and basketball, now has about 140 affiliates throughout the country. Williamson does the commentating, with his partner, Randy Rosenbloom, handling the play by play.

The Ryder Cup on Sunday got an L.A. Nielsen rating of 3.6. That’s pretty good, but it pales in comparison to the 15.5 for the Rams and Houston Oilers. . . . The Rams’ Sean LaChapelle will play a doctor on an upcoming episode of the soap opera, “The Young and the Restless.” . . . Marv Albert and Paul Maguire will call Sunday’s Raider-Kansas City game for NBC. CBS’ NFL game Sunday at 1 p.m. is Minnesota at San Francisco, with Jim Nantz and Randy Cross reporting. . . . XTRA’s Lee Hamilton on Monday at 6:30 p.m. will inaugurate a weekly half-hour segment, “Talk to the Kings.” His first guest will be Coach Barry Melrose.

Chick Hearn will be honored at a celebrity basketball game at UC Irvine’s Bren Center on Saturday at 8 p.m. The game, featuring Branford Marsalis of the “Tonight Show,” actors Jimmy Smits and Andy Garcia, comedian Paul Rodriguez and many more, is being put on by the Lakers, Falcon Cable, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Bill Walton and Michael Cooper will coach the teams.

Boxing beat: Tonight’s Lennox Lewis-Frank Bruno fight is scheduled to be shown on HBO, delayed, at 7:30 p.m. (it is live at 7:30 in the East). But the fight, to be held in an outdoor stadium in Cardiff, Wales, is being threatened by rain. If it is postponed, it will be shown live at 3 p.m. Saturday.

Kids stuff: The Kings’ Luc Robitaille will be part of NBC’s “Name Your Adventure” program Saturday at 9 a.m., giving hockey tips to a surprised K.C. (Kevin) Kronbach, 17, of Thousand Oaks. . . . A sports quiz for kids, featuring Barry Bonds, Shaquille O’Neal, Lawrence Taylor, Steve Young and some of the top names in sports, will be on HBO Saturday at 7:30 p.m.