Channel 9 Drops Ball After Game

If ever a postgame show was needed, it was Wednesday night after the second of Kobe Bryant’s amazing, buzzer-beating three-point shots at Portland.

It gave the Lakers a double-overtime victory over the Trail Blazers in their final regular-season game, it gave them the Pacific Division title, and it moved them up two seeding spots in the playoffs.

It also was one of the most dramatic moments in Laker history.

But one second after Bryant’s shot, announcer Paul Sunderland was saying goodbye from Portland on Channel 9.

No interviews, no postgame commentary, no looking ahead to the playoff matchup against the Houston Rockets. Instead, there was a taped show called “9 on the Town” that had nothing to do with what had just transpired in Portland.

Susan Stratton, Channel 9’s executive producer, said Thursday that before the game she had been instructed by Jeff Proctor, Channel 9’s vice president and senior executive producer of sports, that, no matter what happened, she had to get off the air immediately.

Maybe station management was so emphatic because “9 on the Town” is produced by a company owned by Don Corsini, the station’s general manager.

“There was nothing discretionary about my decision,” Stratton said. “I had no choice in the matter. I had to get off the air.”

A station spokesman said Corsini was out of town and unavailable for comment.

Had Corsini been in town and watching the game, maybe he would have rescinded the order. Or had Pat McClenahan, second in command, not been in his car, returning home from that night’s Angel game, maybe he would have rescinded it.

In any event, leaving the game immediately was a bad decision. The idea was to provide a good lead-in for the debut of “9 on the Town,” and maybe that happened. The average rating for the game was a 9.6, it peaked at 15 and the rating for “9 on the Town” was an 8.5.

But Channel 9 shortchanged Laker fans. And some of them might have gone elsewhere looking for postgame coverage, such as Laker radio station KLAC (570) or Fox Sports Net’s “Southern California Sports Report.”

Actually, Fox Sports Net was still televising the Angel game, but “Southern California Sports Report” was on Fox Sports Net 2 and was being simulcast on XTRA (690, 1150). That’s where an exclusive postgame interview Bryant did with John Ireland, who works for Channel 9, first aired.

Channel 9 finally showed the interview, as did other L.A. stations, but not until after it had allowed itself to be scooped. And how embarrassing was that?

Good Decisions

On Tuesday, at 5:35 p.m., Don Martin, the program director at XTRA who is also in charge of Laker broadcasts on sister station KLAC, got a call from Laker public relations director John Black.

Black told Martin that Bryant wanted to go on the KLAC pregame show, do an interview with Mychal Thompson and take calls from listeners.

Bryant, who wanted to defend himself against charges that he had tanked in the Lakers’ loss at Sacramento on Sunday, was available from 5:45 to 6:15. To put everything together in 20 minutes, it took some scrambling by KLAC and XTRA personnel, and Martin faced a number of decisions.

Normally, there no longer are calls from listeners on the Laker pregame show, but an exception was in order here.

Martin also wanted Larry Burnett to take part, since it is Burnett’s show. It was a good decision. As usual, Burnett brought objectivity and professionalism to the half-hour segment.

That was particularly the case when Bryant said every one of his teammates had denied telling The Times’ Laker beat writer, Tim Brown, in regard to Bryant’s performance Sunday, “I don’t know how we can forgive him.”

Burnett, coming to Brown’s defense, said, “I believe Tim Brown is a legitimate journalist.”

Thompson said, “So somebody is lying?” Burnett: “Somewhere it is not coming out straight.”

Said Burnett on Thursday: “I wish I had said respected journalist.”

Martin also chose to simulcast the half-hour Bryant would be on the air on KLAC and XTRA, which proved to be another good decision.

“Most of the people I talked to who said they heard Bryant live said they heard him on XTRA,” Martin said.

NBA Playoff Notes

During the first round of the NBA playoffs, local carriers Channel 9 and Fox Sports Net can televise games alongside national cable networks ESPN and TNT. Only ABC games are exclusive during the first round. TNT’s exclusivity takes effect in the second round, and ESPN’s in the third. So the first two games of the Laker-Rocket series, besides being televised nationally, will be shown locally by Fox Sports Net with Sunderland and Stu Lantz.

The ESPN announcers for Game 1 will be Mike Breen and Bill Walton, and the TNT announcers for Game 2 will be Kevin Harlan and Doug Collins.

Game 3 at Houston will be on Channel 9 and ESPN, and Game 4 will be exclusive to ABC, with Al Michaels and Doc Rivers.

Fox Sports Net will have a special one-hour “Lakers Live” pregame show before Games 1 and 2, and a postgame show of at least half an hour for every Laker game throughout the playoffs, no matter who is televising it.

Channel 9 is still working out playoff coverage details, including what to do with an Angel-Oakland telecast scheduled opposite Game 3 on April 23.

Oops, Part II

Shaquille O’Neal’s mouth has gotten him in trouble again. During Channel 7’s “Sports Zone” postgame show Sunday, he could be heard saying during a group interview, “Not ... impressed, you know what I mean.”

O’Neal used the same word in an interview with Channel 9’s Ireland on Feb. 1 and was suspended for one game and fined $295,000. The penalty then was severe because he was told he was on live television and still repeated the obscenity.

On Sunday, it was deemed inadvertent. But it did cause Channel 7 to announce that future “Sports Zone” postgame shows would be shown on a slight delay.

Short Waves

Fox will televise the first game of the season between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox tonight at 5 and use the occasion to debut some new bells and whistles.

ESPN has already showed off a few new twists in its baseball coverage, including live interviews while games are in progress. ESPN has Sam Ryan conducting player interviews, and she is one of the best reporters in sports television.

How hot are the Angels? Tuesday night’s opener on Channel 9 got a 4.9 rating, 48% higher than the rating for the team’s opener last year and its highest since the 1998 opener got a 6.0. And Wednesday night, going up against the Lakers, the Angels got an impressive 2.8 on Fox Sports Net.

The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach will be televised by Spike TV, formerly TNN. Spike TV, which reaches 87 million homes, is televising all of the 16 Champ Car World Series races this year at 4 p.m., which means Sunday’s race is being delayed three hours in the West. But viewers with DirecTV can get the East Coast feed and see it live.

HDNet is televising the race live, along with the ensuing Trans-Am. Race commentator Tommy Kendall will call the champ car race with Bob Jenkins, then drive in the Trans-Am.