News

Keeping track of the Toronto Raptors on the television dial is like following a bouncing ball.

TSN and The Score are sharing coverage of the Raptors' National Basketball Association playoff series with the New Jersey Nets, but it's hardly a satisfactory arrangement.

On Tuesday, the Raptors missed a terrific opportunity to place the second game on TSN. In the absence of competition from the National Hockey League playoffs, which was between rounds, the game would have pulled in about 500,000 viewers. TSN, after all, drew 330,000 for the first game in a bad time slot — a sunny Saturday afternoon.

But TSN's first commitment is to the NHL playoffs. And when the Raptors' TV schedule was drawn up last week, the potential existed for TSN airing a seventh game on Tuesday between the New York Islanders and Buffalo Sabres.

As it turned out, the Sabres eliminated the Isles last Friday. By then, the Raptors' second game had been assigned to The Score, which drew 247,000 viewers.

Arguably, the Raptors' owner, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, should have waited a few days before firming up the TV schedule and then given the game to TSN.

The Score would have objected to playing second fiddle, but there are clear advantages to placing the games on TSN. It draws the largest audiences among the sports channels and leads in distribution (nine million households).

The first priority for the Raptors is to get more Canadians watching the games on TV, but increasing audiences and distribution isn't easy. Rogers Sportsnet isn't an option because its schedule is topped up with Toronto Blue Jays games.

Still, MLSE is unlikely to let an opportunity, such as the Tuesday game, slip by again. Should a quick finish to an NHL series give TSN an open night, MLSE will adjust the Raptors' schedule to accommodate TSN.

For example, if the Sabres were to sweep the New York Rangers, TSN's May 4 slot would open up. MLSE would then place the Raptors' sixth game, if necessary, on TSN instead of The Score.

As it is now, The Score has the third, fifth and sixth games (unless the Sabres sweep); TSN has the fourth and seventh.

Looking ahead to next season, MLSE should be thinking about placing games on a broadcast network, specifically the CBC.

The Raptors' audiences are too small to motivate interest from CTV. But telecasts on the CBC, which sees its role as promoting sport in Canada, would certainly increase the team's profile across the country.

Tradition ends

Race announcer Dave Johnson's absence from the Kentucky Derby next weekend will end a long tradition and also deny listeners his famous call: "And down the stretch they come."

Johnson and the Westwood One radio crew, which included host Don Chevrier, are out because Churchill Downs assigned the race to ESPN Radio.

"This will be the first Kentucky Derby that I have not called since 1977," Johnson wrote in an e-mail message this week. "I will be home in my living room, and happy that I will not have to battle the zoo at the track and the traffic back to my hotel."

Johnson called the ESPN Radio deal a business decision. "I don't agree with it," he said. "But I think that is the answer."

The Kentucky Derby website shows that 35 of the top 100 U.S. markets are not covered by ESPN Radio. Westwood One is the largest radio network in the United States.

• TSN's coverage of the world hockey championship in Moscow will begin Saturday at 8 a.m. EDT with Canada playing Germany in the preliminary round. Announcer Dave Randorf and analyst Dave Reid will call the games.
• The Canadian Football League will webcast, free of charge, its annual college draft next Wednesday on CFL.ca.
• Sportsnet's Toronto Blue Jays-Boston Red Sox game on Tuesday had an audience of 351,000, easily bettering the Score's 247,000 for the second game of the Nets-Raps series.
• The first game of the Vancouver Canucks-Anaheim Ducks playoff series on Wednesday drew 1.347 million on the CBC, up 8 per cent from the second-round opener in 2006 (1.25 million, Buffalo-Ottawa).
• The opener of the Rangers-Sabres series on TSN on Wednesday produced 817,000 viewers. That's the most watched second-round telecast ever on TSN and up 83 per cent from 447,000 for Colorado-Anaheim in the Round 2 opener last year.