[外電] The 'South' belongs to Fox
The 'South' belongs to Fox
By TIM TUCKER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/07/06
Some Turner South staples disappeared from the network this past
week — Skip Caray, Pete Van Wieren and "In the Heat of the Night,
" to name a few. But it'll be late in the year before Turner
South, now owned by Fox, completes its metamorphosis into a
regional sports network.
"We see getting one really good shot at this," said Jeff Genthner,
newly appointed by Fox to head the to-be-renamed Turner South,
"and we want to make sure we fully explore what is the most
appealing brand and network name and programming [mix]."
Genthner, who also retains his previous role as vice president
and general manager of FSN South, said Turner South's rebranding
and relaunch as Fox's second Atlanta-based regional sports network
will come "probably sometime between the end of the baseball
season and the end of the year."
In the meantime, the network — acquired by Fox from Time
Warner's Turner Broadcasting for $375 million last week —
is something of a hybrid of its former and future incarnations.
Gone are the syndicated shows, such as "In the Heat of the
Night," and movies that previously filled much of Turner South's
schedule. Those shows were licensed to Turner Broadcasting and
could not be aired once the network changed owners. Also gone is
Turner's Braves broadcast lineup of Caray, Van Wieren, Don
Sutton, Joe Simpson and Chip Caray, replaced on the Turner South
games by FSN South's Bob Rathbun and Jeff Torborg.
Turner South's current transitional lineup is a mix of live
telecasts of Braves and college baseball games and reruns of
Braves games, FSN South programs and Turner South shows such as
"Bushwhacked" and "Junkin.'" For now, two blocks of time are
devoted to non-sports programming — 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays
and 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. all days. But the shift to sports has
begun, with a large number of hours being filled by twice-daily
replays of Fox's Braves telecasts — one at 11 p.m. and the
second at noon the following day.
The Turner South purchase gives Fox the local television rights
to all Hawks and Thrashers games, as well as the majority of
Braves games. The deal marks the first time since the 1970s
that a non-Turner channel is the dominant provider of the
local teams' games.
"So now we have acquired this great asset that has distribution,
that gives us all the Hawks games, all the Thrashers games and
makes us all of a sudden the largest provider of Braves games,
and now we are very committed to creating a great programming
network out of it," Genthner said.
Fox plans to rename Turner South to reflect its new focus, but
Genthner says a name hasn't been decided. It apparently won't
be something as obvious as, say, FSN South 2. "We don't want
to create another 'FSN' brand in the market where the consumer
gets confusion between the two," Genthner said.
How Braves games are divvied up in future seasons between FSN
South and the renamed Turner South, how many Hawks and Thrashers
games get televised, what type of changes might be made in
various teams' lineups of announcers, how college sports
figure into the mix — all of those things remain to be worked
out, Genthner said.
"We're very early in the process," he said.
Genthner is a 25-year veteran of regional sports television and
ran FSN Florida before coming to Atlanta to take over FSN South
last summer.
"We have a very busy few months [ahead]," he said a few days ago,
seated at a conference table in FSN South's offices in Midtown.
"We're excited because we really think we have the tools here
. . . to be something special for sports fans across the South."
Turner South is available in about 8 million homes in Alabama,
Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina and North
Carolina. FSN South is available in 11.3 million homes in
those states, plus Kentucky. In addition to the Atlanta teams,
FSN South owns rights to games of the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies
and the NHL's Nashville Predators and Carolina Hurricanes, as
well as SEC and ACC programming.
——————————
Belkin calls for 'remedy'
A Maryland judge ruled last month that, while estranged
Hawks-Thrashers part-owner Steve Belkin "may very well succeed"
in gaining the right to buy out the teams' other owners at cost,
he hasn't made that case yet.
So Belkin's attorneys this past week tried to make the case with
a new 99-page court filing, which included exhibits and affidavits.
The latest filing in the battle for the franchises details
Belkin's argument that he is entitled to buy out the other owners
and asks Montgomery County (Md.) Circuit Court Judge Eric Johnson
to issue a summary judgment to that effect. Belkin contends the
other owners failed to meet the terms and time frames of their
agreement to purchase his stake, triggering the "remedy" of his
right to buy them out.
"It is time to end the [other owners'] charade and enforce the
clear and unambiguous 'remedy' the parties contracted for,"
Belkin's filing states.
The other owners — principally Bruce Levenson, Ed
Peskowitz and Michael Gearon Jr. — have until May 17 to respond.
In previous filings, they have denied they breached the buyout
agreement, arguing that Belkin sidetracked it by filing a lawsuit.
The next hearing in the case could be in June.
The dispute erupted last summer when Belkin attempted to block a
Hawks trade for guard Joe Johnson. The feud seemed to end when
Levenson, Peskowitz and Gearon agreed in August to buy Belkin's
30 percent stake for a price to be determined by a series of as
many as three appraisals. But by November the owners were at odds
over the appraisal process.
——————————
"Two of my children already have told me they don't think they
can root against the Braves. But we will have further
conversations about that."
— STAN KASTEN, former Braves president, after being named
president and part-owner of the Washington Nationals
資料來源
http://www.ajc.com/hawks/content/sports/stories/0507sptbiz.html
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