If you needed another sign that the importance of sports is being overplayed in the media, all you needed to do was catch KSL's hourlong interview with Utah Jazz star Karl Malone on Monday night.
In prime time, no less.What we saw was not an hour of pre-empted network time devoted to a political leader or a discussion of a major issue. We're talking about spending an hour with an ego-inflated athlete who makes more in a year than most Utahns make in a lifetime.
And, while there was plenty of evidence as to just how inflated Malone's ego is, let's mention just one - he kept referring to himself in the third person. As in, "Karl Malone is this, that or the other," said Karl Malone.
Sort of like using the royal "we."
At any rate, KSL sportscaster Craig Bolerjack did manage to ask some relatively tough questions. He didn't skirt around Malone's relationship with the team's owner, its front office and other players, and he allowed the basketball player plenty of rope to hang himself with.
Malone did just that, coming off as petty, spoiled and arrogant.
Jazz fans can all sleep easy at night knowing that all trades will go through him, huh?
But while Bolerjack managed to ask some tough questions, he allowed Malone to evade many of them without following up.
(It was at least somewhat ironic to see Bolerjack buddying up to Malone, a guy he publicly and repeatedly berated on "Sportsbeat Sunday" a few years back when the Jazzman failed to show up as scheduled.)
It's also rather ironic that KSL, the channel that has so much trouble with the content of network programming, let this interview go out live over the air. Malone's language often pushed the edge of television taste and pushed way over it at one point.
The player used an eight-letter expletive, the first half of which was "bull." And Ch. 5 was so excited about having a live, exclusive interview with Malone that no one bothered to put the program on a 3- or 5-second delay so it could bleep out language like that.
In other words, the station that won't air "Picket Fences" in its regular time slot broadcast an expletive that wouldn't show up on that show. Or even on "NYPD Blue."
And they pre-empted "The Nanny" and "Dave's World" to do it.
HOSPITAL BATTLE ENDS: The battle of medical dramas is over. CBS has conceded defeat.
The Big Eye is moving "Chicago Hope" out of its time slot opposite NBC's "E.R.," which has been cleaning up in the ratings.
Not that "Chicago" has a great deal more "Hope" in its new time slot. All CBS has done is slide it back an hour to Thursdays at 8 p.m., where it will go up against the formidable "Seinfeld."
CBS is flopping "Chicago Hope" with "Eye to Eye with Connie Chung," which moves to Thursdays at 9 p.m. It's a move obviously designed to benefit "Hope" at Chung's expense.
Although "Hope" will face "Seinfeld," at least it's counter programming. And ABC's entry on Thursdays at 8 p.m., "McKenna," is bombing badly, so there is some room open at that hour.
On the other hand, "Eye to Eye" will have to go up against not only "E.R." but ABC's strong news magazine "PrimeTime Live."
MORE STATION SHUFFLING: ABC bought a pair of stations this week, including an NBC affiliate.
Capital Cities/ABC will acquire the two VHF (channels 2-13) stations, one in Flint, Michigan and the other in Toledo, Ohio. And NBC will have to look for a new affiliate in Toledo.
And the station shuffling continues . . .
CBS RENEWS TONY AWARDS: In something of a surprise, CBS has signed an agreement to broadcats the Tony Awards for three more years (1995-97), with an option for two years after that.
It's rather surprising because the ratings for these broadcasts have been downright bad, which is really no surprise. The Tonys are the least accessible of all the awards show, simply because so few people actually attend a Broadway show in the course of a year.
JOHNSON RETURNS - MAYBE: CBS, which doesn't have a lot to be happy about in prime time these days, is positively giddy about the fact that it has signed Don Johnson to star in a prime-time series next season.
"We at CBS are ecstatic," said CBS Entertainment President Peter Tortorici in the kind of hyperbole reserved for network exec-utives. "Don's very presence in `Miami Vice' super-charged the look, style and rhythm of television. In this, his first return to series television, we look forward to a new kind of excitement that only Don Johnson can bring."
CBS is also hoping Johnson has kicked the personal problems that recently sent him to the Betty Ford Center.
And don't hold your breath until this series gets on the air. Networks make announcements like this all the time, and only a fraction of them actually work out.
FAR SIDE: Gary Larson's warped humor comes to television in a Halloween special scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 26.
The animated half hour "Gary Larson's Tales from the Far Side" will consist of 10 vignettes of Far Side cartoons.
Maybe Larson has time to do TV now that he's quitting the daily comic business. That's right - the sad news is that "The Far Side" is ending with Larson's retirement at the end of the year.
DOUBLE DUTY: Former "General Hospital" star Jack Wagner, who recently signed on to appear in Fox's "Melrose Place," is also going to return to "GH."
He'll reprise his role of Frisco Jones on a "recurring" basis on the daytime serial - meaning he'll be a regular character but make fewer appearances than other stars.
TOP TEN LIST: The fact that CBS has fallen from first to third in the prime-time ratings - at least so far this season - has not been lost on CBS's biggest star.
David Letterman has been having plenty of fun at his network's expense, including this Top Ten List - New CBS Promotional Slogans:
10. Where's the remote control?
9. The shows are funnier if you're drunk.
8. Now we s--- as much as Fox.
7. C.B.S.: Come Back Suckers.
6. You could win a chance to father Murphy Brown's next baby.
5. The CBS eye knows what you look like naked.
4. We blew our wad on Late Show boy.
3. Tonight might be the night Dan and Connie do it.
2. Watch us, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman will write you a prescription for the drug of your choice.
1. You can't spell CBS without BS.