On the Air
by Laura Nachman
Bucks County Courier Times
December 15, 2006

Comcast SportsNet had the best A.I. Coverage

Comcast SportsNet, whose studios are located in the Wachovia Center, enjoyed the home court advantage in its coverage of the Allen Iverson-Sixers break-up Friday night.

CSN Sixers' reporter Dei Lynam led the questioning during general manager Billy King's announcement that Iverson would not play that night or the following night. While CSN was broadcasting the game, it aired owner Ed Snider's courtside proclamation that Iverson would be traded. After the game, CSN continued with analysis on “Post Game Live,” with former NBA general manager John Nash, who is an expert on organizations imploding.

If the Sixers covered their opponents as well as CSN covered the Sixers that night, they'd have more wins. (P.S. At the end of the season, who will have more wins, the Sixers or the Flyers? I'm going with the Sixers).

Condolences to Zumoff

Condolences to Sixers television announcer Marc Zumoff, whose mother, Sylvia Zumoff, died this week.

Zumoff did not work the Sixers-Celtics game on Wednesday night and will not do the next two Sixers games in Dallas and San Antonio this weekend. Neil Hartman of Comcast SportNet will announce the televised games.

Graham on call-in show

Deposed Phillies announcer Scott Graham will be the guest on the Internet call-in show, “The Radio Racket” (www.radioracket.com) tonight at 10.

Phillies announcer Chris Wheeler will be the keynote speaker at the Delaware County Press Club luncheon Wednesday at noon at the Towne House restaurant in Media. Go to www.delcopressclub.org for details. Maybe somebody can ask him why Gary Matthews, who hasn't been part of the organization since the days of “Flashdance,” was chosen to join the Phils' announcing team. Was Al Holland busy?

Fox pregame at Giants Stadium

The Fox pregame show with Joe Buck, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long and Jimmy Johnson will take place from Giants Stadium for the big Eagles-Giants game Sunday at 4:15 p.m. Buck, Troy Aikman and Pam Oliver will announce the game. Oliver will contribute a feature about Eagles' quarterback Jeff Garcia for the pregame show.

The game will also be streamed on www.941freefm.com. Now, the rest of the world will get to hear the “Matt Blatt splat of the game” calls. Lucky world!

Prince at Super Bowl

Prince who once wrote a song called “Controversy” is not controversial anymore.

The proof: he will be the halftime performer for the “Super Bowl” on CBS this year.

Habla espanol?

Maybe Sports Talk 950-AM should start broadcasting in Spanish to help ratings. In the latest Arbitron ratings released on Wednesday, Sports Talk 950-AM was in 25th place with a 0.6 share of the audience. One of the stations it trailed was 104.5-FM, which changed its format to Spanish a few months ago.