Backchannelmedia

Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.

Comcast SportsNet Chicago debuts today, and at first glance it looks like something to cheer.

Basically, it will replace Fox Sports Net Chicago in the games it carries, but it will have a much stronger local presence the rest of the day: 8 1/2 hours of local programs above and beyond the games.

Jim Corno was hired away from FSNC to run things, and Comcast and four major local sports franchises - the Cubs, White Sox, Bulls and, ahem, Blackhawks - have combined to give him the money to do things he always wanted to do at FSNC and, before that, at SportsChannel. He'll have access he could have only dreamed of until now.

The viewer figures to see a notable difference in going from FSNC to CSNC. Huge corporations working together to benefit Chicago sports fans: What's not to like?

Yet it doesn't take a tenured Marxist to detect some serious pitfalls - potential conflicts of interest and monopoly abuses. Corporations don't improve services out of the kindness of their hearts; they do it to gain an advantage. They're going to have to be monitored for any sliding down the slippery slope. Here's what to look for.

Competitive squeeze

Comcast and its leading satellite competitors, DirecTV and the Dish Network, have maintained all along that a deal would get done in time for all to carry CSNC. But at press time, negotiations were still pending. At best, the fees Comcast is no doubt exacting from the competition to carry CSNC could lead to increased satellite rates.

Having bought out AT&T Broadband a couple of years ago, Comcast controls about 90 percent of the Chicago-area cable and satellite market. It has done a terrific job updating its technology to offer high-definition TV, video on demand, digital video recording and broadband Internet access. In fact, all local home games will be carried in HDTV on CSNC, as they already are on WGN Channel 9. All except the Blackhawks, who don't televise their home games even when they have a season.

If Comcast succeeds in driving out DirecTV and the Dish Network - which is all but guaranteed over time if they don't carry CSNC, especially with Comcast sure to make a strong bid for DirecTV's exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket package in two years - how long do you think Comcast will push the envelope to offer customers better services? How long before it begins to stagnate? How long before we get the same lazy, self-assured cable service as before satellite competition?

The shill game

The four teams own a piece of CSNC, so if push came to shove they would figure to have the leverage to discourage any criticism. CSNC is aware that would make for a lame product.

"If we're perceived as being a shill for the teams," CSN President and CEO Jack Williams said last month, "the credibility will not be good. Sports fans are not stupid." Williams said they will present the bad news with the good, but with an utter absence of editorializing.

To that end, CSNC has done well to bring in Dan Jiggetts as the host of its daily news show at 5:30 p.m. He is respectful of athletes as an ex-player but has integrity as a journalist and will ask the tough question - albeit politely. If a little editorializing is a good thing, viewers are going to have to look to their newspapers for that.

Exclusivity conflicts

Already, WMAQ Channel 5 has to be irking Bears beat writers with exclusive postgame locker-room access it gained with its five-year deal last season. Channel 5, for instance, had exclusive footage of Rex Grossman giving coach Lovie Smith the game ball for his first win in Green Bay on its "Bears GameNight Sunday" show.

One hears the same sort of gripes from WMVP 1000-AM about the Bears and their flagship radio station, WBBM 780-AM, as well as the perks awarded Infinity Broadcasting sibling station WSCR 670-AM. For the Infinity outlets, it's vice versa where the Sox and Bulls, currently on WMVP, are concerned.

It's admittedly a worst-case scenario, but what if the teams started awarding special access to CSNC and limiting access to other journalistic outlets? This would increase the stature of CSNC and limit the impact of independent media. The teams could, conceivably, try to do all their media, or at least as much as possible, through CSNC. The teams would have much greater control over coverage, and if fans were already used to getting their information from CSNC, they probably wouldn't mind that much.

Already, the Tribune - a part owner of CSNC through its Tribune Co. ownership of the Cubs - has stamped its name on Jiggetts' sports report, a program that figures to do much to promote the Trib and its staff writers. If the Trib used that leverage to squeeze its way into much of the exclusive access CSNC were being granted, it would squeeze out competing papers. The same could go for TV and radio outlets not aligned with Comcast or the teams. Wouldn't the corporations concerned love to silence those nattering nabobs of negativism?

The scary thing about CSNC is it's such a good product to start, it gives a Chicago sports fan little power to change it down the road. A viewer has to hold CSNC and the teams to their honor in order to ensure that it won't be abused. Considering this is cable behemoth Comcast, the Tribune Co., Jerry Reinsdorf and Bill Wirtz we're talking about here, that's not a very soothing prospect.

- Ted Cox's column runs Tuesday and Thursday in Suburban Living, and Friday in Sports and in Time out!