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Technology Stocks : IATV-ACTV Digital Convergence Software-HyperTV -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: art slott who wrote (5747)	7/28/1999 11:24:00 PM
From: Jim Mulis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13157

New channel gives fans more racing The Las Vegas Review-Journal On Wednesday at 9 a.m. PDT, possibly the most important event in the history of racing occurred. That's if anybody saw it. Hopefully you did. The Television Games Network (TVG) debuted. Since luck is the residue of design, I knew my home state of Kentucky is one of the few venues with TVG penetration. Thus, with a few telephone calls, I pieced together how Day 1 looked. The first TVG trivia question is: Who were the first anchors to appear? Answer: Matt Carothers and Ken Rudulph. Carothers and I worked together at Monmouth Park and the Meadowlands. If TVG wanted to attract a younger, hip, female- populated audience, then Carothers is a great start. Telephone calls were taken during the first two hours. Between callers were interviews with racing celebrities, such as trainer Richard Mandella, horse owners Bob Lewis, Mickey Taylor, and Jack Klugman. Even jockey Chris Antley dialed in. The afternoon shift is prime time, when feature races from the east are mingled with early West Coast races. Hosts Caton Bredar and Chris Harrison are the "Pat Summerall-John Madden" team of TVG. Bredar, like Carothers, is an alumnus of Monmouth and the Meadowlands. She also serves as an analyst on FOX Sports racing telecasts. The night owls are Claudia Simon and Todd Schrupp. They were described as "MTVish," maybe even campy. By the way, about five races an hour were shown. Overall, the first 12-hour day received a passing grade. Consider TVG like a fine wine. It'll keep improving. Mark Wilson, president of TVG, was interviewed opening day by Ralph Siraco on the Race Day Las Vegas radio show. Wilson sounded like a father of a newborn baby. "This culminates nine months of very intense work by a very incredibly dedicated team from Los Angeles production folks to engineers and architects back in Denver," said Wilson. "It really is a historic day for racing. We are pretty excited about it." Wilson, a Tom Meeker protg from Churchill Downs, knows TVG is a work in progress. "This is the embryonic beginning of this network," he said, "which will only get better. It's not the same old closed-circuit telecast. If you're new to the sport, it's lively enough and there's enough terms explained that you can get into the sport and understand it. "But I think most folks that will see it, and those who saw it while we were going through rehearsal, will be blown away by the quality of what we're doing. It's sustained racing exposure. "Starting in the fall, we'll be delivering data to you through your PC, so you can have all the information that you want to participate with TVG. "There are two fundamental things that racing's never had. One, we have blue chip corporate investment (TV Guide, Liberty Media, Newscorp) that we have with this network. And that shows up at the beginning with the production quality that you just don't see anywhere else. " Secondly, TV Guide is in 55 million cable households with the TV Guide Channel. We'll cross promote TVG with TV Guide Channel starting in a couple of months, every day. That type of cross promotion is unheard of for racing." For comparison, TVG reaches 1.1 million households. Well, it's a lot better than zero households. "Like any network start-up, it'll grow over time," Wilson said. "MTV didn't get broad distribution overnight. If the reaction from the cable folks is any indicator, we are going to be on sooner, rather than later." Remember 1980s MTV commercials with people screaming, "I want my MTV!" Well, at the grass roots level all of us have to call our cable operator and demand, "I want my TVG!" Richard Eng's horse racing column is published Friday and Sunday. He can be contacted via e-mail at richard.eng@cwix.com. (Copyright 1999)