By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

UPDATED, Sunday Night 10:36 p.m. with Celtics and Patriots-related notes; also UPDATED Monday, 10:25 a.m. with CSN explanation for losing Celts’ feed.

One of the city’s premiere, monthly sports publications, Boston Sports Review magazine, published by Seamans Media, has ceased publication, it was learned today.

Begun in the Fall of 2004, BSR (to which Shots has been a regular contributor and back page columnist) published its final issue with the October, Curt Schilling-cover edition. According to people familiar with the decision to end publication, one of the magazine’s primary investors an investor decided to end his association with BSR. There is still a slim chance the publication could be brought back with an abbreviated production schedule or in some other format, but for now there are no further issues planned.

The news comes as somewhat of a surprise as BSR has been able to ride positive momentum in recent years, especially with its annual “Power Broker 50″ issues which have named Mike Dee (2006) and John Henry and Tom Werner (2007) as the Most Powerful People in Boston Sports. In a marketplace where the sports teams have never been more attention-worthy, the demise of BSR is peculiar. However, it is not entirely unexpected that a small, niche publication without deep pockets, little substantive marketing and a fairly static website (that mostly featured re-published magazine stories and barely any original content) would not be able to continue its existence - even in Title Town.

It’s reasonable to expect a larger publishing company might attempt to replicate what BSR was doing with a larger commitment of resources and dollars.

BSR editor Jerry Spar is expected to continue with Seamans Media’s other publications, including a long-running ski magazine and a start-up lacrosse publication. Seamans media will also still publish the niche title, New England Hockey Journal. Spar will also continue his own media and publishing ventures, including KEO Publishing, LLC, which put out the well-received Red Sox Nation Annual, 2007 publication, done in conjunction with the Red Sox, which was distributed to all Nation members during this past season.

Writers for BSR will still be paid all monies owed to them, according to a Seamans representative, and it is expected that subscribers will be offered pro-rated refunds on remaining subscriptions.

• Just a month into its re-branding campaign in the Boston market, Comcast SportsNet (formerly Fox Sports Net) has already had its “Heidi Game” moment.

The end of the broadcast of the Celtics 98-95, overtime win at Toronto on Sunday encountered “video feed” difficulties and completely missed the game-winning shot by Ray Allen, which came right around 5:30 p.m. EST.

An email and voice message for a local CSN spokesman seeking clarification on the technical snafu was not immediately returned to Shots on Sunday night. When it was, the gaffe was described only as a “Transmission problem from Toronto.” Thanks for clearing that up!

UPDATE: However a spokesman for CSN, Skip Perham, did respond first thing Monday morning with the following:

“Our transmission vendor incorrectly dropped the feed at 5:30 p.m. despite pre-game instructions from us to keep the feed open until 6:00 p.m. and an in-game call before 5:30 reminding them to keep the window open.

CSN does not own the transmission lines from the arena and we rely on third parties to build a transmission path from the arena to our studios. Somewhere along the line, the transmission line closed at 5:30 and the feed went down. We were able to pick up audio via a backup phone line transmission of Mike and Tommy’s call.

We are as upset as anyone regarding the dropped telecast and we are working with our vendor to ensure that it does not happen in the future.”

CSN, the flagship station of the re-born Celts, was in the midst of broadcasting the thrilling finish when a screen shot of a scoreboard and a graphic id’ing the game appeared as the final 7.4 seconds played out with only audio. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, in the midst of the pulsating finish, that Mike Gorman apologized to viewers for the video feed problems. The game-tying bucket in OT from TJ Ford, the game-winner by Allen and the last second attempt by the Raptors were all given with audio-only and no picture.

Fortunately, for CSN, most of New England was fixated on the Patriots game on CBS, but the embarrassing gaff gives the new Network in Town an early low-point from which to un-bury itself.

. . . One wise guy wanted to know if CSN was showing solidarity and honoring Universal/NBC’s Green Week events by going black during sports programming.

. . . NBA.com is, however, able to provide the finish, after the fact.

. . . One possible explanation for the interruption in video delivery of the game could be that the CSN “satellite window” expired at 5:30 and therefore left the Network without a way to beam the game back to master control. No matter what the reason, the end result is a disappointed fan base that was cheated out of a fantastic finish. Almost any explanation from the Network will be nothing more than an excuse wrapped in spin.

• Pats game highlights:

1. CBS’s old and tired Shannon Sharpe calling the Pats defense “old and tired” during half-time on the network. He was laughed at by his cohorts and, probably most humiliating, laughed at by Pete Meat Sheppard on the WEEI 850 AM “real” grating “post-game show” in the 9 p.m. hour.

2. The “chilly” post-game handshake between Belichick and Dungy, as described by Jim Nantz.

Can we please stop fixating on skin rubs of opposing coaches?

3. Matt Light pointing out on TV38’s “Patriots 5th Quarter” that on-site player fondler Steve Burton was wearing the same crushed velvet sport coat as QB Tom Brady.

Light also fired off the first question to the QB after Light’s interview with Brutal Burton was curtailed.

And Babbling Bob Lobel in his hosting duties of 5th Quarter? Just plain awful. The FCC will need to intervene soon if WBZTV doesn’t.

4. Ah, Gino, ah, Cappelletti, ah, doing, ah, his, ah, best, to, ah, kickoff, ah, the, ah, game, ah, and, ah, hand, ah, it, ah, off, ah, to, ah, Gil, ah, Santos on the flagship 104.1 WBCN FM.

Gil is at least tolerable - barely so. Gino? Time to go, my friend. Time to go.

5. The Herald website’s Point After blog is still on a pre-Daylight Savings setting (as of late-Sunday), meaning that John Tomase’s time stamp on his game posts were all an hour ahead of the actual post.

Interesting to note, however, that Tomase’s blog appears to be getting a bit more in-game “Comments” than the more thorough and reliable Mike Reiss blog at Boston.com. Neither, however, is setting the world ablaze with reader input.

. . . Pats’ radio duties at ‘BCN kept Gary Tanguay from his CSN Celtics perch and instead gave us Laura Behnke and Donny Marshall to handle pre- and post-game duties from the new CSN set. Behnke proved more than capable and could very well be carving out a new home for herself at CSN. (She will co-host the Celtics Magazine show on the network, debuting this Tuesday evening at 7:30 p.m.

• Time for a visit to our old friend, Tilber, if you haven’t been there in a while. Tilber - tellin’ like it is and taking names.

• Best voice mail message of the weekend Shots received from a somewhat bitter ex-Red Sox employee: “At least with that win against the Colts, we won’t have to hear about the Sox for a few days!”

Yeah, but the bye-week and GM meetings will certainly steer the locals back onto Sox talk.