Conference ljsrv1::tv_chatter

    I don't follow football at all, but whenever I'm forced to think
    about it, all I can remember is Diane Chambers' (Shelley Long on Cheers)
    method of picking winners: by color of uniforms or by team names.
    Following her method, I predicted that the Cowboys would beat
    the Buffaloes.
    
    Richard

    One of our Australian news commentators, in summing up the USA
    Superbowl, commented that the "whole business was quite an
    extravaganza... and in amongst it there was even some football".
    
    ..drowl..
    
    
    Don
    *8-)

    I can't believe noone mentioned the Lee jeans ads.
    
    One showes a gal getting ready for a date. She's walking around in her
    underwear when her date honks the horn. She struggles to put on a pair of
    jeans that don't quite fit as the date watches her silhouette thru the
    bedroom window. What follows is pretty funny. She dances around trying 
    to get the the jeans up, trips over a lamp cord, the lamp falls
    knocking over a mannequin, which falls on her as she tumbles backward.
    From the boyfriend's perspective, it looks like his date has other
    plans that night.  
    
    The other ad features a guy trying to suck in his gut to get a
    tight-fitting pair of jeans on.  He sucks and sucks and sucks, creating
    a vacuum.  The contents of the room are rushing toward him, nik-naks,
    pictures, a canary...his wife walks in, surveys the damage and yellow
    feathers fly out of his mouth when he tries to speak.
    
    These ill-fitting jeans, of course, were *not* Lee jeans. I'm sure Lee
    had a great tag line that followed each commercial but I was laughing
    too hard to notice.
    
    Jodi- 

    Re .20
    
    Jody,
    
    	We never got ANY of the USA ads in our edition of the Superbowl. It
    was shown here by our National TV station which doesn't show any ads
    y'see. Yep.. Superbowl on TV without adverts - only in Australia ..of
    course!
    
    Don
    *8-)
    
    

    Don, what a shame. Ad agencies often do their best work for
    the Super Bowl. At something like $500,000.00 per 30 second
    spot, they better do something worth remembering.
    
    Jodi-
    

    
    a 30 second spot during the superbowl costs $850,000.
    
    

    I knew I'd be off a bit. The last time I heard a cost figure
    was about five years ago. 
    
    Jodi-

    That comes out to $28,333.00 per second!
    
    Big bucks.
    
    Ben

  I modified the title of this note from Superbowl XXVII to be more general. I
don't mean to generalize it to talk about American Football, there's a separate
sports related conference for that however there are some TV issues that relate
to American Football which seem appropriate here. 

  The next Superbowl is coming up and Budwiser has announced that there will be
a Budbowl VI. This will no doubt be a series of ads promoting Budwiser Beer run
during the game and may include some sort of lottery or give away as it did
last time around. 

  Also in TV football news, the Fox network has signed a contract to cover the
National Football Conference of the NFL taking the conference away from CBS who
had been covering the NFC and the NFL before the merger since the early '50s.
NBC will continue to cover the AFC as they have been since the late 60's. 

  One thing that I am predicting is that we will be seeing a lot more of the
various cheer leaders then we have on NFL broadcasts in the past. Traditionally
the networks have shown cheer leaders at college games but they seem to avoid
them at professional games. Fox being Fox, I suspect that we will see more of
them next year.
  
  George

    
    re "BUDbowl VI": Jay Leno mentioned in his monologue. "It's always
    either Bud or Budlight.... Just once, wouldn't you like to see a
    6 pack of Colt 45 get in there and beat em both ?"
    
    
    Bob

  The match is set. For the 1st time in Superbowl history the game will be a
rematch of the previous year's game as the Buffalo Bills travel to the Georgia
Dome in Atlanta to play the defending champion Dallas Cowboys. 

  CBS said it's good by's to the NFC (The National Football Conference of the
NFL) with today's NFC championship game in which the Cowboys put away the San
Francisco 49'ers to earn their birth in the Superbowl. Next year Fox takes over
the NFC games. Meanwhile on NBC the Bills beat Joe Montana (who left the game
early due to injury) and the Kansas City Chiefs to win the AFC birth.

  As previously mentioned, next week's Superbowl will include Bud Bowl VI in
which animated beer bottles will go head ... that is cap to cap. Also, a company
named Neon is claiming they will announce some sort of new product that is made
from platinum some-other-idum and has a tri-something-or-other surface which is
promised to be environmentally safe. No clue as to what it is.

  George

    In addition to all that was said in .11, McDonalds will be airing a new
    Michael Jordan/Larry Bird commericial.  I saw parts of it this morning 
    on the news.  Sort of picks up where they left off last year, except 
    there's a new kid who wants to join in on the fun but Michael and Larry
    won't let him play. The new kid is...
    
    
    
    	Sir Charles as in Barkley

  Super Bowl XXVIII is in the books and with it another American Football
season. The usual assortment of commercials were played, some being fairly
humorous, although the best had their punch lines revealed in various programs
over the last week. It's amazing, now even TV ads have become news. 

  NBC did a fair job of covering the game itself as the Dallas Cowboys beat the
Buffalo Bills 30-13 to repeat last year's win. The Bills became the 1st team of
any teams in the 4 major U.S. team sports (football, baseball basketball,
hockey) to get into and lose 4 straight championship games.

  Most likely their run is over as their players are getting older which would
be a relief to the TV networks since Buffalo is the smallest of the current 28
TV football markets.

  The half time show consisted of country music and didn't seem as dramatic as
last year's show by Michael Jackson. Somehow country doesn't work unless you
are in a dark bar with the smell of beer in the air. 

  In other TV football news, the CBS announcing team of Sumerall and Madden
mentioned above will go over to FOX when they start covering football next
fall. FOX reportedly paid a bundle for the two announcers and their production
team. 

  George

    .15�be a relief to the TV networks since Buffalo is the smallest of the current 28
    .15�TV football markets.
    
    Just a nit but Green Bay is dead last.
    
    Ken

  That may be but the Packers have a strong TV following in Milwaukee, where
they play some of their home games, not to mention a national following left
over from the Limbardi days. 

  Because the Packers include Milwaukee, perhaps it's more correct to say that
the Bills fans are considered the smallest TV audience in the NFL rather than
Buffalo being the smallest audience. 

  George

  The CBS TV network, which lost the NFL's NFC football contract to the Fox
network last winter, announced late last week that they will be adding figure
skating and romantic movies to their Sunday Afternoon lineup this fall. Their
plan is to go after what they refer to as the woman's market saying that women
prefer figure skating to football. 

  This move is being criticized by the press who believe it won't work and by
others who feel that women would rather watch football. CBS plans to announce
their figure skating schedule in about a week. 

  Turns out there is quite a bit of action to cover in figure skating but much
of it is not at the national or international level and almost all of it lacks
the drama and controversy of last winter's figure skating action both on the
ice and off. It will be interesting to see what develops. 

  CBS will also be going after the Army-Navy football and basketball games and
may try to pick up other Army football action to fill out their weekend
schedule. "Army" refers to the West Point military academy, a college run by
the U.S. Army that produces officers for the U.S. Army and "Navy" refers to the
Anapolis Navy academy which caries out the corresponding function for the U.S.
Navy. 

  George 

  This could be a somewhat interesting night on ABC's Monday Night Football.
Tonight the Cleveland Browns play against the Pittsburgh Steelers which in
itself would be interesting being somewhat of a rivalry, but it is more
interesting because of the controversy brewing around the Browns. 

  Last week the Browns announced that they would be leaving Cleveland to play
next season in Baltimore. This has enraged Browns fans who are some of the most
faithful and dedicated fans in all sports and it has caused many others to be
concerned because this is the 1st time a really popular well attended franchise
has deserted it's fans and left town.

  Usually teams leave due to lack of fan support and poor attendance. This time
the issue seemed to revolved around the need for a new stadium with luxury
seats and other financial guarantees being made by the city of Baltimore. 

  Even though the Browns will be visiting the Steelers there are sure to be
plenty of stories about this controversy reported between plays and periods.
Also this will set the stage for next Sunday when the Browns return home to
host the Green Bay Packers in their 1st game before their fans ("The Dawgs")
since the announcement was made.

  George

    What - no comments on this year's superbowl? Not even the commercials?
    
    Unfortunately I missed the first 1/2 hr, so think also missed some good
    commercials. but my favorites, not in any particular order:
    
         1. Chicken crossing the road, to the sound of the 2001 theme, to
    get a beer, with two guys sitting on the bar porch saying - "well, that
    answer's that question".
         2. Nissan/Pigeon commercial (voice of lead pigeon done by Cliff of
    cheers) 
         3. Bob dole commercial for some bank card (bad commercial in that
    who remembers what company it was for? - imho)
         4. Pepsi bears dancing to YMCA/Village people
         5. Budwieser/copier ad
    
    there were a few others I also liked but can't remember at the moment.
    There were also a lot of rerun commercials and local commercials.
    Budweiser definately had the best (and I think the most) group.
    
    Oh.... and the game wasn't bad either!  :^)
    
    janetb.

    Unfortunately I used the commercial breaks to use the facillities due
    to an over-flowing bladder!  But better than missing the game..or
    soilling myself!  [^8=
    
    	Jay " Favre = Gawd " Tysick 

Personally, I was ticked off at having to wait through an hour and a half
of post-game crap (first Fox Network then local Fox station) before 
"The X-Files" finally came on!!!  Sheesh!!!!!

I didn't watch the game. :-) (Well, I caught the last few minutes when I
turned it one to wait for "The X-Files"...)

- Nina

    Okay, what's the deal with the pronunciation of "Favre"?
    
    All through the game, everyone pronounced it either "Farr" or "Farv". 
    How does *he* say it?  (And why :')
    
    Leslie

    Everyone does pronounce it "Far-ve",but it should be "Fav-re".
    
    	Madden asked him about that a couple of years ago and Favre said,
    "whatever".  I guess it's one of those names that you say to quickly
    and it sounds like something else.  All 2600 people in Kiln, Mississippi
    can't be wrong?  [^;=
    
    	J

    I was beginning to think I had dyslexic *ears*!
    
    Thanks
    Leslie