As viewers know, advertising has been steadily eating into sportscasts for years. Take Channel 2, which ends each evening's sports report with the "Dodge Play of the Day." Still, the references usually stop at the mention of the product and a glimpse of its logo. At Channel 7, though, Bienvenu and Gottsegen gleefully served as full-bore pitchmen, much like Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz did during the so-called Golden Age of Television, when they'd step away from scenes on I Love Lucy to tell the studio audience and viewers at home why they couldn't get enough of Philip Morris cigarettes. Arnaz wasn't just blowing smoke; he died of lung cancer in 1986.
"You may be overstating it a bit," responds Byron Grandy, Channel 7's news director. He insists that the station's deal with B&B only called for the company to be mentioned and didn't specify how much, if any, whoring would be done by the talent. Bienvenu and Gottsegen just happened to notice how much nicer the Coachmen was than the trailers used by most other news organizations at camp, and they turned it into a running gag. "We've always tried to add some levity to camp coverage," Grandy notes. "I don't think in sports that it's a big deal."
Christopher Smith
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As a bonus, the B&B experience opens up new revenue possibilities. Imagine how much the station might rake in if Landess took a break between headlines to talk about the shampoo he uses to give his hair so much bounce and luster.
Channel 7 could use the dough because it's spending plenty on gizmos for Mike Nelson, the former Channel 9 forecaster who appears on the station for the first time on August 30. "We're building a brand-new weather center for him -- an operating weather center that will allow him to be in a broadcast facility and a working facility at the same time," Grandy says. "And we went out and bought him the latest forecasting equipment you can have in a TV station." Fresh graphics and branding are on tap, too, and two new hires will be made this fall to supplement Nelson and mainstay Richard Ortner. They'll replace the late Pam Daale (she died in April) and Marty Coniglio, who landed at Channel 9 after his former station reached out to Nelson. Grandy emphasizes that Nelson and Coniglio weren't traded for one another, but an understanding between the outlets allowed each of them to go on the air sooner than their contracts would otherwise have allowed. The stations even coordinated their press releases, which were sent out simultaneously. Grandy was pleased with the compromise. "Obviously, we wanted to get Mike on the air as soon as possible," he says.
Do you think he'd mind advertising some umbrellas?
Never-ending stories: On August 17, to the surprise of no one, but to the disappointment of many nearby residents, Jefferson County commissioners voted unanimously to approve the construction of a large broadcasting tower on Lookout Mountain. The officials had passed down an identical decision last year, but a judge, reacting to a lawsuit from Canyon Area Residents for the Environment and the City of Golden, ordered them to take another look at some information. When CARE spokeswoman Deb Carney is asked if they did so with an open mind, her reply is succinct: "No." Carney promises more legal action in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the tower from being erected.
Another grassroots effort has already paid off. As Rocky Mountain News editor/publisher/president John Temple recently noted in these pages, he sometimes removes certain comic strips from his paper to gauge whether there's still an audience for them. The Rocky pulled this trick on August 16 with "Alley Oop," and so many readers protested that on August 19 the paper not only reinstated the venerable caveman, but ran strips from the previous three days by way of apology.
Oops.
