Television viewers are getting more sports than ever as both cable TV and conventional boradcasters increase their sports coverage, a cable group said Thursday, seeking to deflect criticism that cable is draining sports away from "free TV."
Those growth of cable TV sports "has expanded viewers' sports prgoramming options by providing coverage of games and sports which have either never been available to broadcasters or which have been ignored by broadcast TV," the National Cable Television Association said in releasing a study of TV sports coverage during the 1980s.While cable's sports coverage has increased during the 1980s, so too has the sports programming on three broadcast networks and local braodcast stations, the association said. Its study says cable has increased sports programming "without depleting broadcast television sports coverage."
Total broadcast networks sports programming rose to a record 1,753 hours in 1988, according to the report, "Fair Games: Broadcast and Cable Coverage of Televised Sports."
That compared with the previous high of 1,695 hours of broadcast sports coverage in 1984, which, like 1988, also was an Olympic Games year, the study said. Three broadcast networks - ABC, CBS and NBC - showed 1,454 hours of sports in 1985, 1,436 hours in 1986 and 1,559 hours in 1987, the study said.
The study comes at a time when critics in Congress and broadcasting say cable is siphoning sports away from so-called free television. At hearings in November, Sens. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said sports such as professional baseball and football could lose their antitrust exemptions if they reduce the amount of free sports programming.
Lawmakers have been particularly concerned about two recent cable sports deals: a 12-year, $550 millon agreement by the New York Yankees giving all TV rights to the Madison Square Garden cable network beginning in 1991; and Major League Baseball's 12-year, $400 million contract with the ESPN cable network to show 175 baseball games a year beginning next season.
Madison Square Garden was negotiating to provide 40 to 50 games a season with WPIX, a local braodcaster which previously had carried the Yankees. Under its contract, ESPN will be able to black out all other baseball coverage on Wednesday nights.
National Football League executive Art Modell told the senators there was "a good chance" the NFL will increase the number of regular season games on cable next year to 16, up from eight.
Metzenbaum worried aloud that cable's ability to generate income both through advertising and subscriptions gives it an advantage in negotiating for sports programming.
However, NBC recently agreed to a four-year contract that will increase the number of nationally televised National Basketball Association games.
But the cable organization's study showed that regional cable coverage of NBA games will surpass local braodcast station coverage for the first time in the 1989-90 season: 790 games to 716 games. Regional cable carried 638 games last season, compared with 679 games on local broadcast stations.
Professional hockey, which received primarily local broadcaster coverage while generally being "ignored by the three broadcast networks through the 1980s," was shown 140 times by national cable networks in 1988, the study said.
"The vast majority of cable's sports programming does not consist of events or games which have `migrated,' from over-the-air television," the study said. "Cable's increased presence in sports programming has served to expand viewers' access to sporting events without depleting broadcast television sports coverage."
The study also found:
- Local broadcast stations increased their coverage of Major League Baseball games to 1,647 games in the 1989 season, up from 1,536 in 1985.
- The ABC, CBS and NBC broadcast networks increased their college football coverage by 52 percent, from 27 regular season games in 1987 to 41 games in 1989.
- National broadcast network coverage of both National Collegiate Athletic Association regular and post-season games grew by 21 percent.