ESPN Makes Huge Programming Change To Morning Broadcast

Tuesday, May 13, 2008


Besides adding Hannah Storm to their coverage ESPN had a big announcement this morning and it was that they're going do to live Sports Centers all morning long. Here are the details....

SportsCenter, ESPN’s flagship news, highlights and information program, will go live 6 a.m.-3 p.m. ET Monday-Friday starting August 11, the opening week of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, replacing the current wheel of re-aired SportsCenters. ESPN’s morning programming has consisted of encore presentations of SportsCenter since January 1996.

The new nine-hour block of live SportsCenters will feature three teams of two main show anchors, an update anchor, and production personnel split into three-hour shifts. Shows will generally reset every hour and SportsCenter Right Now updates will be presented every 20 minutes throughout the block.

SportsCenter will evolve throughout the day, originally putting more emphasis on reviewing the previous night’s news and events, then shifting that emphasis to the news of the day, that night’s events, and the current “buzz” via fan interactivity through a new SportsCenter.com site. Shows (available on ESPNHD) will consist of highlights, breaking news, expert analysis, commentary and debate, plus interviews, live coverage of press conferences, and more.

ESPN Day Programming Effective August 11, 2008

6 a.m.-3 p.m. ET: SportsCenter
3-3:30 p.m.: Outside the Lines First Report
3:30-4 p.m.: College Football Live
4-4:30 p.m.: NFL Live
4:30-5 p.m.: Rome is Burning
5-5:30 p.m.: Around the Horn
5:30-6 p.m.: Pardon the Interruption
6-7:30 p.m.: SportsCenter
Very very interesting choice and the hiring of Hannah Storm now makes a whole lot more sense. The line of thinking seems to be the things blogs have been stating for years in that stories from an hour ago are old news and news from last night is ancient. Good move if you ask me.

(Via ESPN PR)

Posted by Awful Announcing- at 12:04 PM

9 Comments:

If they'd kill that 4:30-5:30 block (Rome and ATH), you'd have a pretty good looking day of sports over at the WWL.

Anonymous said...
May 13, 2008, 1:46:00 PM  

Time to bring back Nation's Business Report and/or Kiana.

odessasteps said...
May 13, 2008, 2:02:00 PM  

Why have both Sportscenter for 9hrs and ESPN News? Seems pretty duplicative to me.

Unknown said...
May 13, 2008, 2:43:00 PM  

I would rather watch 9 hours of Sportscenter reruns from the '90s. They can't put 1 hour of those on each day, even on ESPN Classic?

Dachs said...
May 13, 2008, 2:51:00 PM  

Wow, this increase in workload is going to increase office homicides.

GMoney said...
May 13, 2008, 4:11:00 PM  

if they're doing this...why have ESPNews? Michael Kim will be out of a job...oh, the horror!!

Anonymous said...
May 13, 2008, 4:34:00 PM  

ESPNews will be the wheel of re-aired shows. Every half hour is the same show. Nothing is new until the hot list at 3pm(EST).

Anonymous said...
May 13, 2008, 6:06:00 PM  

I was really hoping this was going to be the death of First Take, damn you Norby, Fire Skip Bayless

Unknown said...
May 13, 2008, 9:41:00 PM  

Good Job! :)

Anonymous said...
Jun 25, 2008, 9:17:00 AM  

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