Lakers telecasts proving to be a big ratings winner

‘Tis the season to be jolly, particularly if you’re a Lakers fan.

Although the team began its current six-game trip Tuesday with a 94-89 loss to the Chicago Bulls, it was a different story Wednesday night.

In one of their best wins of the year, a cast of mostly reserves starred in a comeback victory against Minnesota -- a game in which the Lakers outscored the Timberwolves, 34-7, in the fourth quarter.

Tonight, the Lakers, who trail the red-hot Phoenix Suns by only two games in the Pacific Division, play at New Jersey. Channel 9 will televise the game at 5:30, a delay of one hour. It’s the first of eight Eastern games Channel 9 will show delayed this season.

The Lakers don’t play over the weekend, but on Sunday’s 8:30 edition of ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” Kobe Bryant is featured on the weekly “Sunday Conversation” segment.

On Christmas Day, ABC’s gift to Lakers fans is a national telecast of their matchup against the defending champion Miami Heat. Mike Breen and Mark Jackson will be the game announcers, Michele Tafoya the sideline reporter, and Dan Patrick will serve as the host of the half-hour pregame show, which will begin at 11 a.m.

Then the Lakers conclude their six-game trip with Orlando next Wednesday and Charlotte next Friday. Channel 9, now in its 30th year of televising the Lakers, again will televise those two games on a delay.

The station tape-delays games in the Eastern time zone that are not on national television in order to give fans a chance to get home from work. Also, the later start time generally means higher ratings.

The Lakers on Channel 9 are averaging a 5.4 rating with a 9 share, up 32% from a 4.1 and 7 share at this point last season and the highest rating since the 2003-04 season.

Channel 9’s pregame show, “LTV,” features host Alan Massengale and analyst James Worthy, who are in their eighth season together. The show is averaging a 2.1 rating with a 4 share, up 31% from a 1.6 and 3 share.

Worthy, who majored in radio-television at North Carolina, has proved to be a natural for television. He has the voice, and he knows the game. Some thought he might get into coaching after retiring from the Lakers in 1994.

“This is ideal for me,” Worthy said the other night. “Coaching would have been too time consuming.”

Besides the TV work, Worthy is senior vice president of RP & Associates, a creative marketing and advertising company in Hermosa Beach -- and he’s now a full-time dad. Divorced since 1996, he said he has custody of daughters Sable, 16, and Sierra, 14.

There was a time Worthy’s daughters didn’t know a lot about their father. He said when he took Sierra to a Britney Spears concert at Staples Center four years ago, Sierra pointed up at Worthy’s retired No. 42 jersey and said, “Hey, Dad, someone has the same name as us.”

“I told her, ‘No, that’s me, I used to play for the Lakers,’ ” Worthy said.

Pat McClenahan, senior vice president and station manager for Channel 2 and Channel 9, said of Worthy: “There’s a reason he’s called Big Game James. When the spotlight is on him, he performs.”

McClenahan also called Worthy “a great ambassador” for the Lakers and Channel 9.

“All you have to do is walk around Staples Center and see how he treats everyone and how he treats our clients to see what I mean,” McClenahan said.

Worthy came to Channel 9 in 1999 after a stint at FSN on its national news show. “LTV” producer Lou Cook, who worked with Worthy at FSN, said he has blossomed as an analyst at Channel 9.

“The key was letting James be James,” Cook said. “He knows the game as well as anyone.”

While the Lakers have done well on Channel 9 this season, they have done equally well on FSN West, where the game telecasts are averaging a 3.4 and the “Lakers Live” pregame show a 1.1, an increase of 30% over last season. Those ratings are lower than Channel 9 because FSN West is available only in cable and satellite homes.

The marquee analyst on FSN’s pregame show in recent years has been Jack Haley, whose playing career doesn’t quite match up to Worthy’s, to say the least. But Paul Westphal has been added to the cast, and many observers believe that has helped that show. Bill Walton is one of those observers.

“Paul is the best new analyst on television,” the former Bruin said of the former Trojan.

FSN earlier this year dropped its “Southern California Sports Reports” in favor of putting more effort into shows such as “Lakers Live,” “Clippers Live” and “Dodgers Live.”

“Our research has shown that what our viewers want is more on our local teams,” said Steve Simpson, the general manager of FSN West and FSN Prime Ticket. “Our business model is to be the top local station for all our teams.”

The FSN show, with Bill Macdonald as host, has a crew of 27, counting seven on-air people. The Channel 9 show, which also includes Lakers public-address announcer Lawrence Tanter, has a crew about one-third that size.

Yet people from both shows say there is no rivalry.

“Both James and I used to work with a lot of the people over there,” Massengale said. “They’re all our friends.”

Said Worthy: “I’m the one who recommended Jack Haley for that job.”

Haley said he had lost his job as an assistant coach with the Nets when head coach John Calipari and his staff were fired in 1999. Haley then returned to Southern California to be close to his father, who was dying of cancer.

“James and I were playing golf one day, and he said he wasn’t happy at FSN,” Haley said. “He said he’d put in a word for me, and he did.”

Channel 9’s McClenahan agreed there is no competition between his station and FSN when it comes to the Lakers.

“It’s not like the NFL pregame wars, where they are going head-to-head,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, the more they promote the Lakers, the better it is for us.”

larry.stewart@latimes.com