ABC Sports Completes a Pass to Its Political Team

It went down to three minutes before the wire, but ABC’s “Monday Night Football” got off the air just in time for ABC News to squeeze in a full hour of reports from the Republican convention.

“Start blow-drying Teddy Koppel’s hair ‘cause this game’s done,” new football commentator Dennis Miller quipped as the game, moved to an early start time so ABC could cover the convention, wrapped up.

As it turned out, ABC didn’t have much broadcast network competition for convention coverage. CBS News did a quick report from the convention at 7 p.m. PDT, with anchor Dan Rather calling the convention an “infomercial” for the Republican Party, then went quickly to a “48 Hours” newsmagazine report on human drug testing.

CBS, which later returned to the convention, skipped live coverage of a speech by Laura Bush and part of the talk by the night’s top speaker, retired Gen. Colin L. Powell. CBS, after ABC left the air, also extended its broadcast by a couple of minutes when Powell’s speech ran long. Among the Big Three broadcast networks, only NBC carried no convention coverage, opting to have its cable network, MSNBC, air the Laura Bush and Powell speeches, while the broadcast network aired a rerun of emergency drama “Third Watch” on the East Coast and syndicated fare on the West Coast.