From: neierka@polly.cs.rose-hulman.edu (Kent A. Neier)
Subject: CBS-summary of complaints--[LONG](kinda)
Keywords: CBS, poor, lousy, fudge
Reply-To: neierka@cs.rose-hulman.edu
Organization: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 03:38:13 GMT


OK, as I sorta promised earlier, here are the abridged complaints
against CBS.  This is (probably) by no means complete, but merely
a starting point for anyone who is considering writing a letter(s)
to CBS.  They're in more or less the order that I grabbed them
off of the net.

Feel Free to add on to this list with your own personal complaint.

Kent Neier
neierka@cs.rose-hulman.edu
neierka@blue.nextwork.rose-hulman.edu

CBS Sports
NCAA Basketball Championship Coverage
c.o. Jeremy Handelman
51 W. 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019

ESPN
ESPN Plaza
Bristol, CT  06010

Ignore covering a game between 5pm and 8pm EST 
  CBS needs to sell those 5PM games to localaffiliates, or cable TV,
  so we can get a chance to see them.

No late-night rebroadcasts of the great games during the day.

Why do they continue to show us games that are total blowouts.

Why do we have to listen to Billy "I sell you a car" Packer and Mike
  "Give me another Jelly Donut" Francesca flap their gums when GAMES are
  on.

The lousy split screen.

All I need from them is a friendly "Let's switch you over to X."
  Not a bunch of air-time-flling commentary on games we would rather
  SEE than HEAR about. 

(5 more years of this?!)

Basically, if CBS is going to spend the $ for this tournament, they
  can at least show the games in the first round.  It's like they're
  spending all this money just to block ESPN from showing us the large
  amount of great games we used to be able to see.

During the Missouri/West Virginia game, there were several power
  outages due to the weather. No problem, it's not their fault, but don't
  make me sit there and watch your commentators giggle over stupid jokes
  and try to fill time with dumb trivia when we could have been watching
  basketball at three other gyms!

Well, hell, I'm a UCLA fan, but I didn't need to see the last 40 seconds
  of the UCLA-Robert Morris game THAT badly.  Here's what CBS chose to show
  us in Pittsburgh...what did the rest of you get to see?

   The last 40 seconds of the UCLA game.
   An Anheuser Busch commercial
   An Oldsmobile commercial
   A Xerox commercial
   A promotion for "Real Life Heroes"
   15 seconds of E. Tennessee St. celebrating their upset over Arizona
   A John Deere commercial
   A Geo commercial
   A Sun Chips commercial
   A Selsun Blue commercial
   An Old Spice commercial
   A promotion for "Real Life Heroes"
   Jim Nantz and Billy Packer telling us that 3 games just ended.

CBS' coverage can't even hold a candle to that.  Sure, the games
  from 2am-11am were tape delayed, but you could always catch a
  great game that wasn't broadcast live.  This took care of times
  when you wanted to see a great first round upset in its entirety,
  not just a quick rehash on how Oklahoma lost to SW Louisiana.  
  
The half-time coverage is still very weak. They show you 2 or 3
  minutes. Why can't they at least throw us to a game at half-time,
  and let us roll with the commercials THAT game gets, instead of
  showing us a zillon commercials mixed in with WAY too much analysis
  while games are going on "at the half"?

Coming back from a timeout in the UCLA game, they didn't show any
  updates from the in-progress games for the next 7 minutes, but they
  did manage to go through all the games that were already completed.

The heavy commercial load is a joke, also. I counted at least three 
  occasions where a game would come out of a TV timeout, CBS would
  finally switch to a better game, just in time for... a TV timeout!
  Rarely, though, would they switch to a better game from live action.

I'm rooting for CBS to sell the first round rights to ESPN. If 
  nothing else, let ESPN do that all-night thing with the best games
  of the day. I'm not holding my breath, though...

Why should we be forced to drive to a sports bar every time we
  want to watch the tournament?

CBS 'graciously' switching us (after a commercial of course) to
  another game that had (get this) just over 4:00 remaining, meaning
  we got to see three more 'Like a Rock' commercials.

CBS allowed a Turner station access to the times it couldn't show
  the Winter Olympics, why couldn't they be forced to do the same for
  the tournament?

The camera angles.  The regular angle is fine (the one from above
  mid court).  However every now and then the directors/producers
  decide its time to get cute and so they give you a view as if
  you'd paid for a bad seat (like above the court in the corner).

These guys would rather satisfy the people who paid to show commercials
  than show last minutes/seconds of a game.

Studio coverage stinks and so do the COMMENTATORS.  These guys can't
  get anything right.  One thing that CBS does not seem to understand
  is that games are watched by loyal school followers and basketball
  fanatics/gurus.  Why are they trying to make an audience of
  250 million people?

I "enjoyed" the halftime of FSU-Indiana when CBS broke away from live 
  coverage of UK-UMASS to bring us an "update" on Mike Tyson.
   1) The "update" did not contain any information not readily 
      available on tv and radio for at least 9 hours.
   2) Who wanted to see Tyson regardless?

ESPN switched to live action immediately. Pat O'Brien likes to
  tease you, and force you to miss as much live action as possible.
  Before switching to a live location he feels a lengthy introduction
  is needed. Something like, " Now we are very happy to be able to give
  you bonus coverage from another site. Let's go to location x where
  Gregg, and Quinn are announcing. The score is 63-62 with 1:00
  remaining." Then they finally go to the site live, and you find that
  30 seconds and much action has transpired while O'Brien was giving
  his speech.

Nantz doesn't bother me--he wasn't obviously rooting for a
  specific team.  Packer, on the other hand, was a complete idiot.
  Even if I was a Duke fan,  I would have been pissed off at his constant
  "Laettner, Laettner, Laettner"  while ignoring the great game Hurley was
  having.

Most of their comments are just based on things they know before the
  game, and from there they construct, instead of the other way around;
  doing a horrible job.

  Those commentators are the typical ones that, instead of offering a
  realistic view of the game, they just go w/the predicted winner in case
  they fail. In the Indiana-Duke game they also showed the whole game
  trends towards Duke. 

I couldn't get over Billy (I love the ACC) Packer. He kept repeating
  that Laettner hadn't touched the ball for xx minutes. Who cares?
  His team was winning at that point, anyway.

Actually we are hoping he will stay with CBS to get him out of the ACC!

We get a lot of Entertainment Tonight type coverage.

For the money that Packer makes in a year, we expect a little more.

And by the way - wasn't the most enjoyable part of the TV coverage
  when they put that Kentucky legend Haywood Jefferies and Quinn Buckner
  on the audio.

The way Packer put it, it seem pretty obvious he is rooting for Duke.
  He kept emphasizing on Duke's poor performance during the first half...
  Sheesh, gimme a break, I thought these guys are suppose to be neutral
  and just call the game.