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Pathetic!
Pathetic: That's the only word to use to describe the USA Network's programming decision tonight.
In the fifth set of the hugely anticipated Andre Agassi-James Blake tennis match at the U.S. Open, with Agassi leading Blake 2 games to 1, USA Network announced it would be cutting away to regular programming "due to contractual obligations." What was so important? A rerun of "Law & Order: SVU."
Then, after "Law & Order" ended, did USA Network resume where it left off in the fifth set? Of course not. It replayed this morning's earlier matches, with a rerun of the Agassi-Blake match to follow hours later.
This was as bad as the notorious Jets-Raiders Heidi Game on Nov. 17, 1968, when the bozos at NBC made a similar blunder in "the greatest game you never saw."
Well, now we have the greatest tennis match you never saw.
Whoever made this decision, or whoever negotiated that no-exceptions contract, needs to be fired. Seriously.
(By the way, Agassi won in a classic tiebreaker in the fifth set. "Good As It Gets!" ESPN.com headlined. Here's the story.)
When will we have on-demand TV so we can fire these jackass programming execs?
September 7, 2005 at 11:38 PM in Sports | Permalink
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Comments
Just an FYI, the contract they're speaking of isn't for Law & Order. It's actually to CBS. Normally at 12:35am there's a highlights show. The contract says, though, that if a game is still continuing, CBS gets the right to broadcast the game.
What you say is interesting, though. Did the USA announcers not make any mention of the game moving to the local CBS affiliate? Plus, I guess I don't know how this pans out for you West Coast feed folks. I'll check with our programming director tomorrow at work and see whether she knows what the normal plan is for West Coast feeds.
Posted by: Ryan Westendorf at Sep 8, 2005 1:29:16 AM
Hi Ryan. Yes, I'm on the West Coast, and yes, the announcers made a brief mention of the game moving to the local CBS affiliate. But I'm one of millions of people who never watch live TV anymore (especially sports, where 40 percent of any game or match consists of commercials).
So, regardless of a mention to switch over to a different network, it doesn't do us 3.6 million TiVo subscribers and millions of other DVR users any good.
Posted by: JD at Sep 8, 2005 1:07:39 PM
