SportsNewser

Fox is making a dramatic change to its Saturday evening lineup, cutting back on its long-running and iconic  documentary series “Cops” in favor of live sports. B&C’s John Consoli has the scoop on the sports front, while Vulture’s Joe Adalian talks about what it means for “Cops.”

From Adalian:

A Fox rep tells Vulture the network is simply “cutting back our order,” but that the reduction in episodes produced will not be dramatic. (She could not say exactly how many episodes will be produced going forward). What’s clear, however, is that Fox won’t be airing COPS as anything close to a weekly series for most of the remainder of 2012: Only nine Saturdays this year won’t feature Fox Sports programming, and those nine weeks are split in batches of three weeks over three months in July, August, and December. It seems more likely Fox will keep original episodes of COPS on hand for the first quarter of 2013.

That scenario should seen very familiar, as it mirrors Fox’s move to cut back on “America’s Most Wanted” last year. Sure enough, “AMW” eventually left Fox and found a new home on Lifetime. The odds are good that “Cops” will have a similar fate.

From Consoli:

The entire Saturday sports programming package has been in the planning stages for more than a year, as Fox Sports had to acquire rights and permission to air certain games and events on Saturday nights.

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Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici thinks — although we’re not so sure for the very reasons he lays out in his story — that Roger Ailes would be the key to a successful News Corp. challenge to ESPN. “If there’s one person in the television business who could take on the Worldwide Leader and win, it’s Ailes,” writes Bercovici.

If I were [News Corp. chairman Rupert] Murdoch, I would strongly consider putting Ailes in charge of the new network. (As it stands, Fox Sports chairman David Hill is reported to be leading the effort.) Maybe he wouldn’t want the job. Maybe he’d have trouble working up the necessary spittle for something that’s not his primary passion, politics. (The last network he launched, Fox Business, frequently feels more like a political channel than a business channel.) Maybe, at 72, he’s not inclined to undertake a new multi-year campaign. That would be a shame. If there’s one person in the television business who could take on the Worldwide Leader and win, it’s Ailes.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell punished the New Orleans Saints and members of its coaching staff earlier this week for paying players to hit opposing players hard and knock them out of the game. Sunday evening CNN takes a closer look at the bounty program in a special report:

There is also a media angle to the bounty story. Former player Warren Sapp–now a commentator on NFL Network–said on Twitter that former Saints tight end Jeremy Shockey was the “snitch.” NFL Network ended up discussing Sapp’s comments, and naming Shockey, on air.

In response, Shockey denied the allegation, and is calling on the NFL to punish Sapp:

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Former EVP and GM of CNN, Princell Hair, has just gotten a promotion at NBC. Hair has been named SVP of News and Talent for the NBC Sports Group. He was previously SVP of News Operations for Comcast Sports Group.

Hair, who has been with Comcast for the last 3+ years, will oversee all talent recruitment, negotiation and development for the NBC Sports Group, including NBC Sports, NBC Sports Network, Golf Channel, and the 11 Comcast Regional Sports Networks.

Hair was EVP and General Manger of CNN/U.S. from 2003-2005. Before that he ran News at the CBS TV stations, and has held leadership roles in local news markets including Orlando and Chicago.

Fox Business Network is going into insta-special mode this afternoon.

Gerri Willis will host “Crunch Times: Tim Tebow, Sean Payton, and the Business of the NFL” tonight at 8pmET/PT. The special will take an in-depth look at the league’s volatile post-season leading up to the NFL draft and how the news that Peyton Manning is going to Denver, Tim Tebow has been traded to the New York Jets and the one-season suspension of New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton, will impact the teams’ bottom lines. Willis will be joined by FBN’s Connell McShane, Sandra Smith, and Dennis Kneale to explain the financial impact of the recent moves within the NFL.

President Obama is hosting U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron this week, and it has been announced that the pair will be giving only one joint interview. It won’t be NBC, ABC or CBS, nor will it be Fox News or CNN.

Rather, the pair will be speaking to CBS Sports and Turner Sports during halftime of the first game of the NCAA playoffs Tuesday evening. CBS Sports’ Clark Kellogg will interview the pair, with the game set to air on TruTV. It will be Kellogg’s third time interviewing the President.

For Obama and Cameron, doing the interview during halftime ensures a much larger and more diverse audience than if it were standing by itself. From an audience perspective, one would prefer to be on a larger platform like CBS, but TruTV could see record ratings from this year’s March Madness tourney. Look for CBS News and CNN to take advantage of their sister divisions, and feature clips on their newscasts.

On a related note, CBS News has the only interview with Prince Harry as he travels in Brazil for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The interview will air on “CBS This Morning” Tuesday and Wednesday.

The full announcement of the Obama/Cameron interview, which includes a somewhat glaring error, is below. See if you can spot it.
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It was 20 years ago that sports television changed forever. ESPN’s “SportsCenter” debuted the anchoring duo of Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick, and “The Big Show” was born. Now, The Paley Center is reuniting them (again) for a 20th anniversary retrospective.

Moderated by Jim Miller, who co-wrote the recent ESPN book Those Guys Have All the Fun, the panel will be held April 5 at the Paley Center in New York.

Patrick still covers sports on radio, television and in print, while Olbermann spends much of his time hosting his politically-focused “Countdown” on Current TV. Olbermann also has a baseball blog on MLB.com. The pair ere reunited on NBC’s “Football Night in America” a few years ago, though as Olbermann left NBC, so did the reunion.

The NFL is moving up its opening game of the 2012 season so as not to clash with Pres. Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. In recent years, the season kickoff game has been played on a Thursday night. This year it will move up to Wed., Sept. 5. airing on NBC at 7:30pmET. Which means the cable networks will have tough some competition for their coverage of night three of the convention.

In September, Pres. Obama moved up a speech on jobs and the economy so as not to conflict with the 2011 season opener between the Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints.

As he did in Denver four years ago, Obama will deliver his acceptance speech at an NFL stadium. This time at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.

Another win last night for the New York Knicks and their new star Jeremy Lin who scored 17 points against the Atlanta Hawks, then sat out most of the fourth quarter.

As the Linsanity continues the Asian American Journalists Association released a media advisory yesterday setting guidelines for journalists covering Lin. The first “Danger Zone” listed is the use of the word Chink.

“Pejorative; do not use in a context involving an Asian person or someone who is Asian American. Extreme care is needed if using the well-trod phrase “chink in the armor.”

Of course, this comes too late for ESPN Mobile writer Anthony Federico, who was fired earlier this week for using that very phrase in a headline early Saturday morning.

Federico’s headline and his firing were a hot topic in the news earlier in the week. MSNBC anchor Richard Lui said, “To Asian Americans, the ‘C’ word is the equivalent of the ‘N’ word to African Americans. Lin is being watched by Asian Americans, fanatically. I’m one of them. But he’s being watched by everybody else too. If this were to be a teachable moment, maybe it’s that these stories are inspirational and understandable alone. But all together, they transcend the world of sports.”

For his part, Federico is now speaking out, on Twitter:

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The Washington Examiner profiles Washington DC’s number one sports fan, and he just happens to have a pretty high-profile TV news job as well.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer is already well-known as a lover of the Redskins, Wizards, Caps and Nats, but the Examiner notes that he is also a regular at the NBA All Star Game. This year’s game is being televised by TNT, a sister network to CNN.

Blitzer also shares his thoughts on the Nationals, thoughts that are familiar to this Met fan’s heart:
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