Everything Is Magic, Especially the Ratings

In phone conversations with Chick Hearn and Kitty Cohen, it was hard to tell who was more excited about the return of Magic Johnson to the Lakers.

“We just had our highest ratings ever in the history of Prime,” said Cohen, Prime Sports’ general manager as well as an avid Laker fan. “Not only our highest for a Laker telecast, but our highest for the [pregame] ‘Lake Show,’ the highest for ‘Press Box,’ the highest for everything.”

Cohen said there is a new company policy that prohibits giving out ratings, which seems a little odd since advertising rates are based on ratings, but finding out the rating for Tuesday night’s Laker game didn’t take much digging.

The rating in L.A. cable households was a 10.8, and in all households, as confirmed by A.C. Nielsen, it was a 9.3.

Prime had been averaging a 3.2 cable rating and a 2.1 overall rating for Laker telecasts.

Magic might have missed his triple-double Tuesday night, but he tripled the ratings.

You can only imagine what tonight’s Laker-Chicago Bull game on Prime will do, what with Magic playing against Michael Jordan.

The national cable rating on TNT Tuesday night was a 4.4, third highest for a regular-season game in the 12 years TNT has been showing NBA games and the highest for a late-night telecast.

TNT spokesman Greg Hughes said of tonight’s game, which was added to the TNT schedule: “We’ve never had this kind of media interest in one event.”

When Jordan returned last March 19, NBC got a 10.9 rating, more than double what it been averaging and the highest rating for a regular-season NBA game in 20 years. TNT’s first Jordan telecast got a 5.1 rating. The TNT average for the season was 1.7.

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For once, Hearn isn’t exaggerating when he calls tonight’s game “the biggest ever in the regular season for the Lakers, at least the biggest in recent history.”

For its part, Prime will be using eight cameras, instead of the usual six, through the weekend, which includes Sunday night’s game against Utah.

Channel 9 will have its first Laker telecast of the new Magic Johnson era Tuesday from Denver.

Johnson’s return has no doubt pumped new life into Hearn.

“During my career, I’ve been blessed to almost always have a superstar or two on the team,” he said. “Having someone like Magic on the team just makes my job that much easier.

“What Magic did the other night was just unbelievable. Sure, I was skeptical. I was shocked he played so well, and said so on the air several times.”

About the Magic-Michael debate, Hearn said, “I once asked John Wooden who was better, Larry Bird, Magic or Michael, and he said, ‘Magic, because he makes the other players around him so good.’ Magic showed us that the other night.”

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Of course, Johnson is all over the place on television these days. NBC’s “NBA Inside Stuff” Saturday at 11 a.m. will offer a special behind-the-scenes look at Magic’s first week back, and he will be on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” next Thursday.

Also, at halftime of the second game of NBC’s doubleheader on Sunday, San Antonio at Orlando, an interview with Johnson by Bob Costas will be shown.

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Golf beat: The Pebble Beach National Pro-Am will be on CBS this weekend, the first of 22 golf events, involving 110 hours, the network will televise.

Today’s second round will be on the USA network, delayed at 4 p.m.

Jim Nantz and Ken Venturi return as CBS’ golf anchors. The USA anchors are Bill Macatee and Peter Kostis.

Macatee, 40, has been with USA since 1990 and recently signed a new contract that will take him through 1997.

He was sort of a boy wonder in sports television when he went to work for NBC at 26, becoming the youngest network sportscaster in the business. But he says he is happy at USA.

“We do the Masters and the Ryder Cup, we do Wimbledon and tennis’ U.S. Open,” he said. “Hey, spending two weeks in Paris and sitting with John McEnroe, that’s not a bad gig.”

Among USA’s 13 golf events this year will be the Nissan Open at Riviera later this month.

Macatee, a Texas native who lives in Calabasas, is also a student of Krav Maga, a form of martial arts.

“I know just enough to get the heck beat out of me,” Macatee said.

TV-Radio Notes

Prime Sports didn’t show Thursday night’s UCLA-Oregon game until 11:30 because the Kings were on at 7:30, followed by “Press Box.” The problem is, the pro teams contractually get precedence. There will be an exception, however. On Feb. 15, when UCLA plays host to Arizona, that game will be shown live, instead of a Mighty Duck-Vancouver game, thanks to a nice public relations move by the Ducks. Prime got permission from the Ducks to move their game to public-access channels. Prime will also replay the Duck game after the UCLA game. To repay the Ducks, Prime has added a game March 31 at San Jose to its schedule.

Fox has named Joe Buck, Thom Brennaman and Chip Caray, all sons of baseball announcers, as play-by-play announcers for its baseball coverage this season. . . . No Angel television announcers have been named, but Steve Physioc and Joel Meyers are apparently front-runners for the play-by-play job. Dave Winfield and Fred Lynn are among the candidates for the commentating job, which is still wide open.

ABC will begin a new “Women in the Game” segment on “Wide World of Sports” this weekend. . . . ABC’s Donna de Varona has been named winner of the Women Sports Foundation’s Flo Hyman Award for her work in women’s sports. . . . Prime Sports’ programming chief, Pat McClenahan, has been promoted to senior executive vice president of the Fox Sports-Liberty partnership. McClenahan will be responsible for all production efforts involving all of Liberty’s regional sports networks.