"Football Night In America" Changes Its Philosphy

Thursday, June 04, 2009


I didn't really have much of a problem with Football Night In America's approach to their program, but apparently they think it's too "highlight driven". Well, with the hiring of Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison, that's all going to change. From Dick Ebersol via Sports Business Daily....

NBC Sports & Olympics Chair Dick Ebersol yesterday indicated the net’s “Football Night in America” studio show will change its directional tone, cutting back on the amount of highlights from that day’s games to allow for more league analysis and previews of that night’s primetime broadcast. Ebersol: “We have failed to clear out enough time to discuss football, and we’ve been too locked in on highlights for every game.” While clips from each game will still be shown, Ebersol noted there will be “much more emphasis on the whys of what happened at that game than we’ve had in the past.” Ebersol: “I feel that we’ve been neglect in that area.”
I rather enjoyed the no nonsense approach to just showing highlights, but that could be the reason I though Jerome Bettis and Cris Collinsworth were so pointless on the show. NBC can afford to discuss game theory more now, and with Tiki Barber moving on-site, they have the right number of people to do so.

NBC's "FNIA" To Feature More Analysis; Dungy, Harrison In Studio (Sports Business Daily)

19 Comments:

Screw that. It's just an excuse to utilize they're talking heads more.


Bring back the real NFL Primetime.

TJX said...
Jun 4, 2009, 1:18:00 PM  

Football Night in America is the worst show because they didnt show ENOUGH highlights! I usually watch ESPNews to catch up on football on Sunday nights because even though they only can show like 30 seconds to a minute, its just highlights and stats with minimally yapping.

Sean OLeary said...
Jun 4, 2009, 1:31:00 PM  

Note to everyone! SSReporters wants more Chris Berman!!!

GMoney said...
Jun 4, 2009, 1:32:00 PM  

NBC should've let Tiki Barber go as well. Barber ever since joining that show has been useless. He provie nothing except add another talking head that that show doesn't need. Thank God NBC came to their senses and realized he doesn't belong in the studio at all. By putting him on the road, we don't have to listen to his dopey insights.

Unknown said...
Jun 4, 2009, 1:33:00 PM  

Anytime, I can find torrents of the old NFL Primetime, I put them on my youtube channel. That was my favorite television show for years and now it can't ever be recaptured. Still, Tony Dungy, as one of my heroes, is the man and he has infuriated Bears fans with his questions about Cutler. Perhaps the Broncos really knew what they were doing after all. With our talent on offense, Orton or Simms will do just fine.

Brad James said...
Jun 4, 2009, 1:33:00 PM  

PhilosOphy.
Get a spellchecker, willya?

JRE said...
Jun 4, 2009, 1:47:00 PM  

Great, more people getting more time to repeat like a large black parrot what Bob Costas says.

BC: "The 49'ers defense is good, but not as good as San Diego's, Bus, what do you think?"

BUS: "Yeah, San Diego has a good defense, and if the 49'ers have a chance, they have to have a defense as good as San Diego's"

TIKI: "I could not agree more, see, for the 49'ers to have a shot at capturing the essence of this game, they need to rise to the level of San Diego, particularly the defensive side of the ball."

E Buzz said...
Jun 4, 2009, 1:51:00 PM  

Ughh... this is terrible news. And I am not sure how you could say you liked their past approach either? The show was a crowded, jumbled disaster in my opinion.

The lead in to the Sunday night game should be all about highlights. Isn't that the point of giving the channel that has the game the rights to air extended highlights?

We have countless hours of chalk talk, trend talk and analysis from the ESPN, CBS, and Fox pre-games. At that point in the day you want to see what happened around the league with a bit of discussion about implications going forward and a side of preview for the night's match-up

Unknown said...
Jun 4, 2009, 1:52:00 PM  

All pre-game shows should be put into a large trash bin and set on fire. They are useless, no one has anything worthwhile to say, and you end up having to put up with idiots like Berman, Bradshaw, and the like. Just show the damn games.

UnHoly Diver said...
Jun 4, 2009, 2:04:00 PM  

"Bring back the real NFL Primetime."

Only if Bill Pidto comes back to do the Cardinals & Lions highlights.

"All pre-game shows should be put into a large trash bin and set on fire."

100% agree.

Jun 4, 2009, 2:24:00 PM  

They still have too many people on the show. Why do they even need a pregame? The late games don't end until 7:30 eastern and no one watches the first half hour of the show. Start your show at 8 do quick highlights of the early games, come back preview your game and send it to Al Michaels. You know how many people you need for that? Three Costas, Dungy, and Harrisson. I like keith and dan on the shows they do during the week do they need to be on on sunday too?

Anonymous said...
Jun 4, 2009, 2:30:00 PM  

They need more than one host at this point.

Maybe three, one to tradeoff between the two hosts who have their own little group of NFL National Football League Analysts.

It's like Hollywood Squares, for retards.

E Buzz said...
Jun 4, 2009, 3:04:00 PM  

I Tweeted yesterday pretty much what SSR said (I was actually fine with Berman's schtick - I used to imagine myself hosting a college football version of Primetime with Boomer-ripoff schtick, and yes I know I just objected to Boomer inducting Ralph Wilson.). I like the idea of making FNIA a no-nonsense highlights show like a Berman-less Primetime, but then they could get rid of everyone except Dan, Keith, maybe Bob, and one or two of the former players.

Morgan Wick said...
Jun 4, 2009, 6:11:00 PM  

Less action, more yammering? Where do I sign up!!

BF said...
Jun 4, 2009, 9:28:00 PM  

We get "Monday Morning Quarterbacks" the other 6 days a week - why remove extensive highlight packages to those who don thave the ability to watch every game at once on Sunday.

Also - nothing burns me up more on a highlight package when it starts with... "And we pick up the game late in the forth quarter with the game tied at 31"... Well - how did it get there?!

Unknown said...
Jun 5, 2009, 6:37:00 AM  

If they're going to cut back on the highlights when they have exclusive access to those highlights for a certain period of time, then the need to led TWWL bring back Prime Time in its full glory.

Bayma said...
Jun 5, 2009, 12:58:00 PM  

NFL Network's postgame show beats the snot out of everyone else. Tony Dungy is the man and Rodney Harrison will bring hard-hitting (no pun intended) analysis but fans want highlights with Tom Jackson-esque analysis. That's why NFL Primetime was so magical at its inception.

Brad James said...
Jun 5, 2009, 1:45:00 PM  

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Anonymous said...
Jun 9, 2009, 4:43:00 AM  

This is retarded. I could barely watch it before, now less highlights? Will not be watching at all, I miss Primetime.

Boosterburn said...
Jun 9, 2009, 5:47:00 AM  

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