Lanky Livingston
Guest
Pretty interesting stuff here! I had no idea a football show was never the number one program, for instance.
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With 7:30 left in the second quarter of an otherwise forgettable October game between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, Cris Collinsworth said the name that had been on Fred Gaudelli's mind for at least five days.
The Steelers were trailing 14-3 at that point, and the game was threatening to go slack. At least that's how it felt to Gaudelli, the producer of NBC's Sunday Night Football and one of the most highly regarded talents in sports television. The Bengals had just scored a touchdown after forcing and recovering a Ben Roethlisberger fumble. In response, Pittsburgh, one of the worst running teams in the league, had decided to keep it on the ground. Jonathan Dwyer for 11 yards. Jonathan Dwyer for five yards.
And that's when Collinsworth noticed something happening along the Steelers' offensive line that casual viewers probably missed.
"Willie Colon inside," the color analyst said, "doing a nice job." Gaudelli, working the dials in a truck parked outside Paul Brown Stadium, had been waiting for this.
Last year, Sunday Night Football became the No. 1 show in America, the first time a sports program had reached the top ratings spot. Even in its heyday, Monday Night Football didn't touch the year-end No. 1 slot. This year, Sunday Night Football is still No. 1, with an average of 21 million people watching per week.
How'd NBC do it? I met with Gaudelli a few weeks ago at the network's home in Rockefeller Center to ask him that very question. Gaudelli is 52 and looks and sounds like a guy who has spent the better part of 30 years inside the "truck"—the production space outside a stadium where all these live games get packaged and prettied up. He has the solid build of a suburban dad, and he is a quick, lively talker with more than a little of his native Westchester in his accent.
There are a few obvious explanations for NBC's success. Sunday Night Football benefits from a deliriously good schedule (far stronger than ESPN's Monday night slate, which delivers 13 million viewers a week, eight million fewer than the NBC games). The NBC package—which features 17 Sunday-night games, the season opener, a Thanksgiving game, a wild-card playoff, and a Super Bowl once every three years—is loaded with ratings catnip: The Giants, the Patriots, the Steelers, the Packers, the 49ers and the Cowboys each appear three times this season. "The marquee has to have stars," said Gaudelli. "The schedule is a huge part of our success. You'd be foolish to think otherwise."
There's also the booth team of Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, the best in the business, according to Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch, and while your mileage may vary on Bob Costas, Tony Dungy, and the rest of the on-air talent, there is no denying the overall crispness of the production, the way everything looks and sounds sharper, the way it seems to see more than the other broadcasts. NBC has taken a time slot and turned it into something else—a big, noisy event, draped in bunting and heralded by trumpets, that takes great pains to illuminate all the small, complicated things that happen on the football field. How the network did that has a lot to do with what happened with 7:30 remaining in the first half on that night in October.
Click link for the rest.
*************************************
With 7:30 left in the second quarter of an otherwise forgettable October game between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, Cris Collinsworth said the name that had been on Fred Gaudelli's mind for at least five days.
The Steelers were trailing 14-3 at that point, and the game was threatening to go slack. At least that's how it felt to Gaudelli, the producer of NBC's Sunday Night Football and one of the most highly regarded talents in sports television. The Bengals had just scored a touchdown after forcing and recovering a Ben Roethlisberger fumble. In response, Pittsburgh, one of the worst running teams in the league, had decided to keep it on the ground. Jonathan Dwyer for 11 yards. Jonathan Dwyer for five yards.
And that's when Collinsworth noticed something happening along the Steelers' offensive line that casual viewers probably missed.
"Willie Colon inside," the color analyst said, "doing a nice job." Gaudelli, working the dials in a truck parked outside Paul Brown Stadium, had been waiting for this.
Last year, Sunday Night Football became the No. 1 show in America, the first time a sports program had reached the top ratings spot. Even in its heyday, Monday Night Football didn't touch the year-end No. 1 slot. This year, Sunday Night Football is still No. 1, with an average of 21 million people watching per week.
How'd NBC do it? I met with Gaudelli a few weeks ago at the network's home in Rockefeller Center to ask him that very question. Gaudelli is 52 and looks and sounds like a guy who has spent the better part of 30 years inside the "truck"—the production space outside a stadium where all these live games get packaged and prettied up. He has the solid build of a suburban dad, and he is a quick, lively talker with more than a little of his native Westchester in his accent.
There are a few obvious explanations for NBC's success. Sunday Night Football benefits from a deliriously good schedule (far stronger than ESPN's Monday night slate, which delivers 13 million viewers a week, eight million fewer than the NBC games). The NBC package—which features 17 Sunday-night games, the season opener, a Thanksgiving game, a wild-card playoff, and a Super Bowl once every three years—is loaded with ratings catnip: The Giants, the Patriots, the Steelers, the Packers, the 49ers and the Cowboys each appear three times this season. "The marquee has to have stars," said Gaudelli. "The schedule is a huge part of our success. You'd be foolish to think otherwise."
There's also the booth team of Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, the best in the business, according to Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch, and while your mileage may vary on Bob Costas, Tony Dungy, and the rest of the on-air talent, there is no denying the overall crispness of the production, the way everything looks and sounds sharper, the way it seems to see more than the other broadcasts. NBC has taken a time slot and turned it into something else—a big, noisy event, draped in bunting and heralded by trumpets, that takes great pains to illuminate all the small, complicated things that happen on the football field. How the network did that has a lot to do with what happened with 7:30 remaining in the first half on that night in October.
Click link for the rest.