Opinion: Franklin’s Firing Seems Harsh

Apology, suspension not enough for ESPN

From David Barron at The Houston Chronicle:

Ron Franklin’s name has appeared in this space at least 60 times since 1997, so I hope you will understand why we begin today with thoughts on his unfortunate departure from ESPN in the wake of an exchange with ESPN reporter Jeannine Edwards.

Franklin, 68, is alleged to have referred to Edwards as “sweet baby” after he objected to her comments during a conversation in Atlanta before a bowl game. When Edwards took umbrage with the phrase, Franklin is said to have replied, “Do you want me to talk ugly to you, like ‘(bleep)?’ ”

After the exchange was reported to ESPN, Franklin was removed from the Fiesta Bowl broadcast on ESPN Radio. He apologized for his behavior but expected to return to work next week. However, he was called Tuesday by ESPN executive Norby Williamson and told his two-year contract was being terminated.

Franklin’s firing, and the events leading up to it, did not take place in a vacuum. It was the culmination of a five-year period in which ESPN steadily reduced his duties, generally in inexplicable fashion.

After working Saturday prime-time games on ESPN for many years and calling the BCS Championship Game on ESPN Radio, he was replaced in both jobs in 2006. The former job went to Mike Patrick after Patrick was replaced on ESPN’s prime-time NFL games by Mike Tirico. Tirico also got the BCS radio slot after ESPN lost the PGA Tour, which was one of Tirico’s primary assignments.

In 2009, Franklin was removed from ESPN’s Big Monday Big 12 basketball games so the network could pair Brent Musburger with former Texas Tech coach Bob Knight. Franklin’s outdoors duties also were cut sharply as ESPN reduced its coverage in that regard, eventually selling off its BASS subsidiary in 2010.

Franklin continued calling football and basketball for ESPN but was frequently shifted to lesser games while ESPN, for some reason, assigned Big 12 events to Sean McDonough or Brad Nessler, both of whom lack Franklin’s knowledge of sports in the Southwest.

Franklin at one point planned to retire from ESPN in the wake of the reassignments but elected last spring to sign a new two-year contract with a full football load and decreased basketball duties.

Read more here.

Tom's Take: Franklin was wrong to say what he did; however, on the surface, this espisode could have been ESPN's chance to cut loose an "old guy". The guy is 68. ESPN kept demoting him (perhaps hoping he would quit). Along comes a more serious situation and ESPN pulls the trigger.

NFL, ESPN Push Toward Monday Night Pact

Sides Have Discussed Big Fee Increase Even as League Complains of Hard Times

The National Football League and Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN unit are pushing toward an extension of their "Monday Night Football" broadcasting deal that includes a substantial fee increase, highlighting the health and power of the league even as NFL owners claim their business is encountering hard times.

Matthew Futterman at wsj.com cites industry executives with knowledge of the talks, the two sides have discussed increasing the rights fee to as much as $2 billion a year.

ESPN executives, however, are said to be trying to both lower the annual fee and gain all multimedia rights to the Monday night games to make the deal more valuable and in line with deals it now has with the National Basketball Association and college football.

A new deal featuring such a large increase from the current $1.1 billion annual price tag would come at an awkward time for the NFL, whose owners are considering locking out the players when the current collective bargaining agreement expires in March because they claim the league is facing economic turmoil.

Read more here.

CNN’s Piers Morgan Aims to ‘Kick Butt'

Piers Morgan, the former tabloid editor who succeeds CNN talk-show host Larry King this month, enjoyed competing with News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch and hopes to “kick his butt” going up against cable leader Fox News, according to bloomberg.com.

“To be in this new jungle you have to make noise and I intend to make noise,” Morgan, 45, said today at a meeting of television critics in Pasadena, Calif. “No question that CNN is getting its butt kicked in prime time by Fox and MSNBC, and I intend to turn that around. I enjoyed competing with Rupert Murdoch before and I hope to kick his butt.”

Morgan takes over on Jan. 17. His arrival comes after “Larry King Live,” the dominant prime-time cable news program in the 1990s, fell behind Bill O’Reilly of Fox News and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. In 2010, King averaged 671,000 viewers for Time Warner Inc.-owned CNN, according to Nielsen Co. data, down 38 percent from 2009’s 1.1 million and from 1.6 million in 1998.

Oprah Winfrey will be Morgan’s first guest. The show will travel to London for the April 29 wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Morgan said he won’t have Madonna on his show.

“Lady Gaga is twice as good, half her age and twice as hot,” Morgan said. “I’d rather have her.” His best interview ever was with Simon Cowell, the former judge on TV’s “American Idol,” because “I made him cry.”

Read more here.

The 'Golden Voice' To Lean Forward

MSNBC Hires Ted Williams For Voiceovers

MSNBC announced Thursday that Ted Williams, the homeless man whose golden pipes have made him a national sensation, is recording voiceovers for the network's "Lean Forward" campaign. The spots will begin airing on Thursday night, according to huffingtonpost.com.

In a statement, MSNBC said that Williams' story "embodies the very same American ideals that the Lean Forward campaign seeks to highlight."

Williams showed off his voiceover chops when he introduced Thursday morning's "Today" show.



Also read here:

Behind golden-voiced Ted Williams is ex-wife Patricia Kirtley, the story's real hero (NYDaily News)

Hope For All Because of Homeless "Golden Voice" (Radio Station Management blog)

O’Reilly To Sit Down With Barack Obama

Pre-Super Bowl Interview to air on Fox Broadcasting

Sources tell Mediaite.com that Bill O’Reilly has landed an exclusive pre-game interview with President Barack Obama scheduled to air on the Fox Broadcasting Channel before the Super Bowl. This will mark only the second time that Obama has sat down with Fox News — his first was last year with Bret Baier. But its the first time that Obama will participate with Mr O’Reilly as a sitting president (though O’Reilly did interview Obama in the later stages of his presidential candidacy.)

Mediate notes the history between Fox News and the Obama Administration has, at best, been fraught with tension in the first two years. Most notably starting in the Fall of 2009 when White House official Anita Dunn attacked Fox News by saying that they were “not a real news organization“.

Many will see this as a very smart move for the President; this writer even suggested that the smartest thing Obama could do (at least from a publicity perspective) was go on “The Factor.” Why? Well as we wrote at the time, of all the “big-time” personalities on FNC, O’Reilly is arguably the most moderate. A proud, self-described “independent,” O’Reilly was the least antagonistic towards Obama during the presidential campaign, which Obama rewarded when he agreed to sit down for a much ballyhooed interview — an event that not only got great ratings, but appeared to help Obama in the polls.

Yes O’Reilly has been a fairly vocal critic of this administration, but his critiques have been relatively tepid, which has been evident throughout the first two years of Obama’s current term.

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Assange: 'I Own All of the WikiLeaks Documents'

Three months after he had given the Guardian most of his collection of nearly a quarter of a million leaked documents, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.org, stormed into the office of Alan Rusbridger, the paper's editor, with his lawyer.

According to Nicholas Jackson at theatlantic.com, he was furious. In an ironic turn of events, one of Assange's employees at WikiLeaks had leaked the last big chunk of the documents to the Guardian, absolving the paper of a previous agreement with Assange to roll out the now infamous diplomatic cables one chunk at a time. I own this information, Assange essentially told Rusbridger, before threatening to sue. Just seven days later, the leaks got out.

WikiLeaks, which was founded by Assange in 2006 to create "an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis," stands for transparency if nothing else. In exclusive interview after exclusive interview, Assange has reminded reporters of that. "[M]ost of the times, transparency and openness tends to lead [toward a more just society],"

Assange told Time magazine's managing editor Richard Stengel over Skype, "because abusive plans or behavior get opposed, and so those organizations which tend to commit them are opposed before the plan's implemented...." But WikiLeaks is an organization, and one that is starving for cash to continue operating.

Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and a number of other companies have cut off WikiLeaks because of the controversy surrounding the diplomatic cables. It was in Assange's best interest -- philosophy be damned -- to roll out the documents at a pace that would keep press coverage at a maximum level.

In a new feature story from the February issue of Vanity Fair, "The Man Who Spilled the Secrets," veteran reporter Sarah Ellison -- formerly of the Wall Street Journal -- dives deep into the clash between Assange and the editors of the Guardian and the New York Times. A lot has been written about WikiLeaks this year, most of it coming out since the release of the cables, but most of it has been opinion-driven; Ellison is the first to report on the legal action Assange threatened the Guardian with.

Read more here.

Also read here:

The Man Who Spilled The Secrets (Vanity Fair)

Report: Top 20 Broadcast News Stories

The Tyndall Report monitors the weekday nightly newscasts of the three American broadcast television networks: ABC World News with Diane Sawyer (formerly Charles Gibson), CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. (Numbers are minutes of broadcast coverage)

BP’s gushing oil well on the deepwater seabed of the Gulf of Mexico dominated headlines throughout the spring, with NBC’s Anne Thompson leading the coverage. It was by far the biggest Environment story of the last two decades—yet prompted no follow-up spike in coverage of energy policy, or global warming.

For the first time since 2001, the Islamic World was not the focus of foreign coverage. Instead, attention turned to the Americas--the Port-au-Prince earthquake, the Chile mine rescue, NBC’s usual shameless shilling for the Olympics in Vancouver. The narco-violence in Mexico should have made hemisphere coverage even heavier but ABC (8 min v NBC 33, CBS 21) fell down on the job.

The war in Afghanistan was less newsworthy than in 2009 (416 min v 556): CBS devoted most resources there; NBC made heavy cuts. The cataclysmic monsoon floods in next-door Pakistan (54 min) were the year’s most undercovered story.

Coverage of the Economy is a reverse indicator: it peaks during recessions and subsides during recoveries. Unemployment may still be stubbornly high yet the newshole for the economy has reverted to the mean. So apparently growth has resumed.

The midterm elections were even more newsworthy than in 1994 and 2006, the last two times the House changed hands. No-change midterms routinely get scant attention. ABC’s political team of Jake Tapper and Jonathan Karl got most face time.

The Most Newsworthy Woman of the Year was Christine O’Donnell for demonstrating the limits ot the Tea Party’s power to change politics; the Man, Tony Hayward, now has his life back.

Read more here.

Republicans Challenge FCC's Net Neutrality Order

House Republicans are wasting no time going after the Federal Communications Commission's controversial net neutrality order, passed by a 3-2 vote along party lines on Dec. 21.

Katy Bachman at mediaweek.com reports on Wednesday (Jan. 5), the day the 112th Congress convened and Republicans took over the House, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) filed the Internet Freedom Act, asserting that the authority to regulate the Internet rests with Congress, not the FCC.

The act is backed by 60 representatives, including the majority of Republican members on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It is similar to a bill Blackburn filed during the previous Congress.

When the FCC passed its order, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called a press conference with Blackburn, Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.); they vowed to "explore every option to reverse this order."

"The FCC's Christmas week Internet grab points out how important it is that we pass this bill quickly," Blackburn said. "The only sector of our economy showing growth is online. In these times, for an unelected bureaucracy with dubious jurisdiction and misplaced motives to unilaterally regulate that growth is intolerable . . . I agree that the Internet faces a number of challenges. Only Congress can address those challenges without compounding them. Until we do, the FCC and other federal bureaucracies should keep their hands off the 'net.'"

Read more here.

Prime Time Changes For The Weather Channel

Original Programming with Live Updates and Local Weather On Screen Begins Weeknights at 8 p.m. ET

The Weather Channel announced Thursday a new prime time network schedule set to debut January 31 that will feature two-hour original programming blocks preceded and followed by one-hour editions of the popular live evening show Weather Center.

Beginning at 8 p.m. ET, viewers will see original programs such as Storm Stories, When Weather Changed History and It Could Happen Tomorrow. During all original programs, viewers will see hyperlocal current weather conditions and forecasts for their community on the bottom of the screen, along with “Local on the 8s” and live weather updates delivered at the top and bottom of every hour, making viewers never more than 30 minutes from a live forecast update.

“The Weather Channel has always had original programming – shows like Storm Stories have been viewer favorites for years. The new schedule will now make it easier for viewers to find those shows along with their local forecast on screen and ‘Local on the 8s,’” said Bob Walker, executive vice president, marketing and cross platform development. “Live weather coverage is the foundation of our network and makes up the vast majority of our content, and we think the addition of originals in prime time, featuring live updates twice an hour, gives our viewers more of what they have told us they want.”

Original programs on The Weather Channel will take a deeper exploration of the weather, going beyond forecasts to focus on the science behind weather and the impact of weather.

The mission of TWC is to be best at covering weather, locally and across the United States. When severe weather strikes, The Weather Channel preempts original programming to continue with its award-winning live coverage of weather events as it has done successfully for many years. This is a frequent occurrence – most recently, during the lake effect snow in early December and the Christmas weekend blizzard, original programming blocks were preempted every day to continue coverage highlighted by live field reports and analysis from the severe weather expert team.

Longtime Voice Dick Pust Out At KGY

Leaves station amid its financial restructuring

After a career spanning 51 years with KGY Radio, Olympia, Washington broadcasting legend Dick Pust’s career with the station ended suddenly Wednesday when he was let go as the station’s general manager.

He hosted his final early-morning radio show Wednesday at the iconic station that overlooks Budd Inlet, the last installment of a six-day-a-week broadcast that began at 5:30 a.m. and has run since 1967.

“I’m in shock,” said Pust about the sudden end to his connection to KGY, which broadcasts at 1240 on the AM dial and at 96.9 on FM.

Accounts varied Wednesday about why Pust no longer is with the station, according to a story at theolympian.com.

Pust said he was fired and that tensions had been building between him and KGY Inc. President and Chief Executive Jennifer Kerry, a resident of St. Petersburg, Fla., who visited the station in December and was there Wednesday.

Pust said Kerry approached him two weeks ago and asked him to prove his loyalty to the station by firing a particular staff member. Pust says he told her he could not, in good conscience, do that.

“It was so abhorrent to me that it felt like I was being initiated into a gang,” he said, adding that he wouldn’t “play their game” and was fired.

Kerry, whose mother, Barbara, used to own the station, sees it differently.

She said the station likely faces a typically slower first quarter for advertising revenue. With that in mind, she asked Pust to step down as general manager, likely taking a salary hit, because the station could not afford to continue paying a general manager. He was asked to continue with his show and work in the community, she said.

“Dick made the decision to leave the company because he did not choose to continue on in a lesser role,” Kerry said.

Read more here.

Ted Meets His Mom

Ted Williams, who has become an overnight sensation after the Columbus Dispatch posted a clip of him demonstrating his voiceover skills while begging by the side of the road, reunited with his mother Thursday afternoon, according to CBSNews.com.

"Hi mommy," said Williams, 53. "You always told me to pray, and I've been praying, mommy."

Julia Williams was clearly worried about her son's history with drugs and alcohol.

"Please don't disappoint me," she said.

"I'm not mommy," he said. "I'm through with all that."

Julia Williams teased her son for talking about her age on television.

"God did this, mommy," said Williams, pointing out that he was wearing the only set of clothes he owned - but noting he had recently gotten a haircut. "I was praying that my mother was staying around long enough to see me."

Williams told his mother of some of his job offers, including how he recorded a commercial for Kraft Macaroni & Cheese that will air on ESPN during the Fight Hunger Bowl on Sunday.

More of their reunion will be broadcast Thursday on the "CBS Evening News" and the "Early Show" Friday morning.

Read more here.

Ted's Checkered Past Comes To Light

Before becoming the country’s most distinctive new voice, Ted Williams compiled a lengthy rap sheet that landed him in several Ohio lockups on a variety of criminal charges, according to the website thesmokinggun.com.

Williams, 53, has been busted for theft, robbery, escape, forgery, and drug possession. He is pictured in mug shots taken as a result of those Ohio collars, which stretch back more than two decades.

Read more here.

NPR Veep Resigns Over Juan Williams Firing

CEO Schiller Rebuked

NPR VP Ellen Weiss Takes the Fall for the Public Debacle that was Juan Williams' Firing for Comments on Muslims, according to a CBSnews.com story.

In the wake of an extensive internal review at National Public Radio, the senior executive who had a key role in the firing of commentator Juan Williams has resigned.

In a lengthy memo, the NPR Board of Directors announced that VP Ellen Weiss (right) has resigned, but gave no further details.

The board also expressed concern over the roll that CEO Vivian Schiller (left) , who famously said Williams should have kept his opinions between him and his shrink, had in the firing. Although it ruled out terminating Schiller's employment, it said she would not receive a salary bonus for 2010.

Williams was fired by NPR after saying on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" that he gets nervous when he sees people on a plane with clothing that identifies them as Muslim. NPR said his remarks violated its standards of not having on-air personnel giving opinions.

Williams said he was fired because he appeared frequently on Fox News.

The memo from the board also details new internal procedures for personnel decisions and disciplinary action, and announces a new ethics panel.

Read more here.

Also read here:

Official Statement from NPR on the review and Schiller's eMail to NPR staff. (NPR.com)

Ted Williams Shows Off Golden Voice

NBC photo

His voice intact and his dignity restored, a Brooklyn-born panhandler returned to his hometown Thursday morning - and used his golden voice to open the "Today" show.

"From NBC News, this is 'Today' with Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera, live from Studio 1A in Rockefeller Plaza," said Ted Williams, the homeless recovering alcoholic turned media star.

According to a story at nydailynews.com, Williams, 53, arrived at the morning network show's W. 48th St. studios with a big smile. Just three days ago, he was begging for change from motorists in Columbus, Ohio.
"It's delightful, just delightful," Williams said of his instant celebrity. "I'm just happy to meet Matt Lauer, see my mom and be back in New York!"

The new star sported an old wardrobe: A green camouflage jacket, green T-shirt and jeans. He sipped from a coffee in one hand and a water bottle in the other.

Williams said it was unclear when he would reunite with his mother, Julia Williams, for the first time in more than a decade.

"I don't know when I'll see her," he said before sitting for a nationally-televised interview.

Julia Williams, 92, told WCBS Channel 2 News that drugs "destroyed my whole family."

Read more here.

Ted Williams' Mom: "God Has Answered My Prayer"