By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

With the World Series set to begin this evening, a battle of regional sports networks is being waged over coverage of the red hot property, the Boston Red Sox.

Within 15 minutes of a late-Tuesday mass email from Comcast SportsNet (the former Fox Sports New England) concerning its addition of ex-Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo to the CSN World Series roster, Sox-owned NESN was touting via email its plan to have “almost 70 Hours of Red Sox Coverage.” [If you ask us, they might as well just go ALL-Sox, ALL-THE-TIME (except for those wonderful wee hours of infomercials).]

Interestingly, at the time the announcements went out, NESN was already flexing its Sox muscle with (plausibly live) coverage of the Tuesday afternoon pressers from Fenway, while CSN stuck with whatever fringe-sport programming it was looping (paintball games, if you must know). As NESN boasts, you might as well stay with the network you’ve been with all-season.

The push to ride the Sox wave comes at a time when CSN is beginning to build its “newsgathering” division which has been publicly touted by parent company bigwigs at Comcast. Arroyo is CSN’s answer to NESN’s Rice, Eck or Remy and the transitioning network’s stable of Sox commentators such as seasoned Sean McAdam, soaring Joe Haggerty and bloggerific Rob Blogford Bradford offers good alternatives to the sometimes overdone Remdawg and the oft-rambling Jim Ed.

But the message is clear, the expanding CSN is coming after NESN and it will find ways around the 3-headed partnership of NESN, the Sox and the Globe.

“There is no question that once our news is up and running we will be providing live coverage of major events such as this,” said CSN spokesman, Skip Perham in an email just before 5 p.m. on Tuesday.

• As you may have noticed, the city’s media machine is in various, catastrophic states of overdrive and underperformance.

A new low was struck with the electronic media on Tuesday night during WBZTV CBS4’s 5 p.m. newscast. Loooooooong-time entertainment critic Joyce Kulhawik “interviewed” three students from the Harney Academy, who then performed a variation on the Papelbon Dance, as the Sunday Pap video played on an in-studio flat screen to the young kids’ right.

All that was missing was Dave Maynard and his rendition of “Star of the Day.”

This was during the newscast, people! A NEWScast. And that’s not even the most egregious of the Sox fondlers like NBC7 WHDH (and its WB56) and FOX25 WFXT, which is already seeing ratings gold.

To follow up the JOyce jockularity, Dan Roche and Bob Lobel played up the bullpen’s lost parrot story which was dubbed, quite comically, as “Top News” on the station’s website.

We’ve all gone mad and it will only get worse we fear.

• Maybe Shots is just looking for stuff to nitpick to offset all the good will and high sprirts of everyone, but the blogging BoSox beat writers have been almost entirely underwhelming on their post-season stages. Too many gaps in the Herald’s two baseball blogs ( Bradford’s and the Clubhouse Insider) while some off-day lulls hampered the Globe’s Extra Bases.

Still, with a handful of dedicated staff from the dot-com, the Globe has been the better choice for overall depth and frequency of postings both in-games and out-of-games.

Only the paper’s writers file into the Herald’s Sox page, whereas Boston.com’s site has the luxury of folks like Gary Dzen, David Lefort, Chris Forsebrg and not-ready-for-NECN Steve Silva to fill in gaps. And Amalie Benjamin has become a proven live-blogger of game action for the site, although she still needs to get away from the nitty-gritty and a bit more into the obtuseness of the Event itself. The idea is that people are watching the game AND joining your blog for witty repartee and lame jokes.

At least that’s how we’ve seen it work best.

. . . Basic point is this: We are in the midst of the city’s first truly Internet-ready World Series and it strikes us that the sports desks all over the region (Old Media and New) are not doing a 24-hour job of providing content for a salivating, almost insatiable audience.

There is no reason that for the next week, at least, each of the city’s major daily’s websites shouldn’t have hourly Sox blog updates during the work day and in the hours leading up to and following the games.

. . . Please don’t tell me that the papers are using resources to pump out printed pages, either. The Globe has run old memory and excerpt pieces at least twice in the last ten days in what has become inexplicable re-use of old copy. Retrospectives can live on the ‘Net – no need to waste section pages on reprints of what Bob Ryan and Dan Shaughnessy said in 2004.

• So, in re-reading this post I realize that I want it both ways.

On one hand, I can’t stand the over-saturation of meaningless Sox related programming. But on the other, I’m begging for more blogging from the city’s beat writers.

I guess it proves that my true problem is with the TV world jamokes joining the Sox bandwagon at alarming and embarrassing rates.

• The two releases, from CSN and NESN, and when they were received by Shots:

CSN’s email 4:26 p.m.

For Immediate Release October 23, 2007
BRONSON ARROYO JOINS MOHEGAN SUN SPORTS TONIGHT
AS EXCLUSIVE BASEBALL ANALYST FOR WORLD SERIES GAMES 1 AND 2

BURLINGTON, MA – Mohegan Sun Sports Tonight, New England’s only twice nightly, live sports analysis show, is expanding to provide unfiltered coverage of the World Series. Joining hosts Gary Tanguay and Greg Dickerson is former Red Sox hurler and 2004 World Series Champion Bronson Arroyo for Games 1 and 2.

Arroyo, one of the most popular members of the Sox title team, will provide analysis live from Fenway before and after Game 1 and in-studio immediately after Game 2. Joining Arroyo will be Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon (before Game 1); regular baseball contributors Sean McAdam, Rob Bradford, Tony Massarotti and Joe Haggerty; and Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal (before Game 2).

Game 1 – Wednesday, October 24
6:30 p.m. Friendly’s Scoop World Series edition with Jonathan Papelbon
Bronson Arroyo, Tony Massarottl & Gary Tanguay - Live from Fenway
Greg Dickerson – In-studio

Post-game Arroyo, Massarotti & Tanguay - Live from Fenway
Dickerson – In-studio
` Player reaction
Post-game press conferences

Game 2 – Thursday, October 25
6:30 p.m. Ken Rosenthal, Sean McAdam & Dickerson - Live from Fenway
Tanguay – In-studio

Post-game Arroyo & Tanguay – In-studio
McAdam & Dickerson - Live from Fenway
Player reaction
Post-game press conferences

In addition to Game 1 and 2 pre and post-game coverage, Comcast SportsNet will provide post-game coverage during Games 3 and 4 live from Coors Field. If necessary, Comcast SportsNet will have live pre and post game coverage for Games 5, 6 and 7. More details on coverage to follow.

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NESN’s email 4:39 p.m.

Red Sox World Series Preview Special
NESN will kick-off 1½ hours of live World Series pre-game coverage on Wednesday, October 24th with Red Sox World Series Preview - Live at 6:30 PM from the network’s Yawkey Way stage.

Tom Caron will be joined by Jerry Remy and Dennis Eckersley on the stage with Don Orsillo and Tina Cervasio on the field to deliver the most comprehensive pre-game coverage in the market.

The ½ hour preview special will be followed by Olympia Sports presents The Boston Globe Pre-Game Show at 7:00 PM. NESN will continue to produce one-hour pre-game shows before every World Series game plus deliver a full hour of post-game coverage after every game with WB Mason Extra Innings and Granite City Electric Extra Innings Extra.

The Remy Awards – Friday 10/26 at 7:00 PM
NESN will debut The Remy Awards – Post-Season Edition presented by Dinn Trophy on Friday, October 26th at 7:00 PM. NESN analyst Jerry Remy will unveil his annual regular season Remy Award winners in this ½ hour special.

Almost 70 Hours of Red Sox Coverage Planned
In addition to the most extensive pre and post-game coverage, NESN will deliver extended Red Sox coverage with NESN SportsDesk, Globe 10.0 and NESN.com consisting of daily updates from the ballpark, exclusive interviews and expert commentary. NESN will also feature additional Red Sox archival/historical programming throughout the World Series including replays of Impossible to Forget (NESN’s documentary on the ’67 Sox) and Royal Rooters (a documentary on Sox fans).

David Scott writes from a seaside shanty on the shores of Hull, Mass. and can be reached at shotsATbostonsportsmediaDOTcom.