Enjoying the World Series in recent days, I’ve been reminded of how important sports has been to the acceptance and growth of radio and TV broadcasting.  Play-by-play accounts date back to the early years of radio.  Sports was the sweetener that brought TV into America’s living rooms.

It started with TV sets in bars.  A guy could drop by his neighborhood watering hole on a slow afternoon, have a few brews and catch a Yankees game on the tube.  Maybe not as good as being at the ballpark, but darn close.  If you could enjoy this in a bar, why not have your own TV at home?  The lady of the house might have wanted one for soap operas or movies, but when her husband caught the baseball or boxing bug, things started to happen at the TV sales shop.

My uncle who lived in a Jersey suburb near New York was in the best position – lots of TV stations with many hours to fill with sports broadcasts.  He also had his ideas as to brand of receiver.  It had to be an RCA.  He saw them as the developers of TV and the real experts.

My dad, an electronics guy, invested his money in a set made by Capehart-Farnsworth.  He felt that Philo T. Farnsworth had essentially invented TV and should have known best how to build one.

But being in a small TV market cancelled any advantage our slick TV might have had.  There simply weren’t enough independent stations with large blocks of time to carry ballgames.  These were the days before the regional cable sports nets.  Eventually, Ted Turner would become very rich relaying Atlanta Braves games to cable systems in little towns that otherwise had few chances to see big city baseball.

A great job has been done by Fox Sports and Turner Broadcasting in covering this year’s baseball postseason.  Sportscasters have made themselves a vital part of TV and radio.  Without them, life just wouldn’t be the same.

Here’s further comment on the September Roost dealing with newspaper pay walls for website content, this time from Rob Luciano, director, business development, for Worldwide Panel: 

“One concept that seems to be working for some publications is the “freemium” model.  That is give away lots of content, generating traffic and thus an advertising base, and also selling premium services that appeal to a small percentage of customers.   

“The club model you suggest is interesting, but seems daunting to negotiate with multiple competitive players.  Getting separately owned publications onboard and agreeing to terms, conditions, and revenue share would be quite a challenge.”

Thanks, Rob.  I agree that life for publishers is going to be far from easy.

And a nugget from the Marquest On Demand Menu Planner studies:  In each of the six annual surveys, consumers’ number one preference among on-demand programming genres has been recent mainstream Hollywood films.