Fox Lets Viewers Put in Their 79 Cents

One pleasant result of not having an NFL team in Los Angeles is an extra game on television every Sunday.

Fox and NBC alternate doubleheader weeks, with Fox first up on opening day, Sept. 3.

Fox station Channel 11 has come up with a nice idea--allowing viewers to help determine the schedule--although each vote, via 900 numbers, will cost 79 cents.

The station will donate the proceeds to a good cause, an NFL-sponsored youth center in Compton.

At 10 a.m. Sept. 3, Fox will show either San Francisco at New Orleans or St. Louis at Green Bay in Los Angeles, followed at 1 p.m. by Minnesota at Chicago.

If you want the 49ers and Saints, call 1-900-370-8222. For the Rams and Packers, call 1-900-370-8333. The numbers will be in effect Sunday night through Wednesday.

Of course, if you have a satellite dish system that offers the NFL Sunday Ticket package, then for $139 you can get every game throughout the season.

There is a similar baseball package being offered by DirecTV, PrimeStar and other dish systems, free through the rest of the season.

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NBC’s six-week run of Baseball Network games begins tonight at 8 and continues on Friday nights leading up to postseason play.

There has been some fear that if the Dodgers and Angels make the playoffs and end up playing at the same time, one of the games won’t be televised here. But a spokesman for the Baseball Network said that will not be the case, that the secondary game would be farmed out to another Los Angeles station.

If NBC had the primary game, then Channel 7 would get first crack at the other one. If Channel 7 passed, then it would be open to an independent station, with Channel 5 presumably first in line.

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Radio talk: The Los Angeles bureau of XTRA will move out of its KWNK studio in Woodland Hills and into a new facility in Hollywood on Monday. XTRA will drop its 670 signal on Thursday and only be on 690. But the station has plans to beef up its signal to cover the San Fernando Valley.

XTRA’s John Ireland has been hired as a weekend sports anchor by Channel 9. He held a similar job at San Diego’s Channel 51.

After starting at Channel 9 in mid-September, he will continue doing the early morning show on XTRA, but about half the time will be doing it with partner Steve Mason at the L.A. studio. The way it works now, Mason is in L.A., Ireland in San Diego.

Meanwhile, KMAX-FM (107.1) will announce a new lineup today, effective Monday.

The Fabulous Sports Babe, Nanci Donnellan, will come on earlier, 9 to noon, with the first two hours live. That will enable her to take calls from KMAX listeners during those hours.

From noon to 4, newcomer Bob Golic will be on, with Rich Herrera, followed by Joe McDonnell from 4-8. The outlandish duo of Dave Smith, dubbed “the Sports God,” and Joey Haim, “the Matinee Idol,” will continue 8-midnight.

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Fox has made it official, announcing that Jim Rome will be one of the hosts of the new “fX Sport Show,” Sunday nights at 8 on the cable network, fX, beginning Sept. 3. Kevin Frazier, a Cincinnati sportscaster, will be the other host.

Rome did his last “Talk2” show on ESPN2 last Friday. Since then, comedian Nick Bakay has been filling in. Chris Connelly, former host of the “Big Picture” on MTV, will also get a shot.

Then the show is expected to go on hiatus before coming back in a new form with two hosts. XTRA’s Rick Schwartz, along with Bakay and Connelly, are among the candidates for those roles.

TV-Radio Notes

As if the Mike Tyson-Peter McNeeley pay-per-view telecast wasn’t a big enough rip-off, the same outfit, Showtime Entertainment Television (SET), is coming back with Tyson vs. Buster Mathis Jr. on Nov. 4. And it gets worse. On Sept. 30 from the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, N.J., SET will offer NBA stars Shaquille O’Neal and Hakeem Olajuwon going one on one for $12.95 to $19.95. The world is going crazy. . . . On the brighter side of things, former Angel commentator Joe Torre, working the Little League World Series this week for ESPN and ESPN2, has shown he may be the best baseball commentator in the business. . . . New York Yankee pitcher Jimmy Key, sidelined because of a shoulder injury, will be ABC’s commentator for Saturday’s championship game at 12:30 p.m., joining play-by-play man Terry Gannon. Key led his Little League team from Huntsville, Ala., to the regional final in 1973 and will donate his ABC pay to the Huntsville Little League. . . . KNX is dropping the CBS baseball game of the week after this weekend.

College football begins this weekend on ABC, with Virginia-Michigan at 9 a.m. Saturday and Ohio State-Boston College at 11 a.m. Sunday. ESPN has Nebraska-Oklahoma State on Thursday at 5 p.m. . . . NBC is covering this weekend’s beach volleyball national championships at Hermosa Beach. . . . Tennis’ U.S. Open begins Monday at 8 a.m. on the USA network, with CBS offering late-night highlight shows from 12:37 a.m. to 1:07 during the week. . . . TNT’s debut of “Pro Football Tonight,” a special two-hour edition, will be shown Sunday at 5 p.m. . . . Fox’s big preseason show, “Fox NFL Primetime,” will be televised Monday at 9 p.m. It was taped Thursday in Hollywood before a live studio audience and opens with a monologue by Terry Bradshaw.

Chris Myers’ nice-guy approach seems to work well on ESPN’s “Up Close.” As it was with Roy Firestone, the show is almost always interesting and newsworthy. Harry Caray is Myers’ guest on today’s show at 3 p.m. and again at midnight. Tim Wakefield is Monday’s guest. . . . Barry Melrose has signed a multiyear contract to serve as an NHL studio analyst with ESPN and ESPN. . . . Rory Markas, on KNX last Sunday, had a provocative interview with race caller Trevor Denman, in which Denman said the use of whips by U.S. jockeys is primitive and would not be tolerated in other countries. Markas then did a special on the topic Thursday night.

This month’s edition of “Thoroughbred World,” which has two more dates on Prime Sports--Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. and the following Saturday at 8 p.m.--tells a heartwarming story involving the owners of Serena’s Song, Bob and Beverly Lewis of Newport Beach. It turns out there is a hot-air balloon that, by sheer coincidence, is named Serena’s Song after a young Iowa girl who has cerebral palsy. The girl’s parents, Gary and Cheryl Waldman, give handicapped children free rides in the balloon. The Lewises got wind of this project and now some of Serena’s Song’s earnings go to the Waldmans’ cause.