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Lia Lando’s newest role at Channel 4 Thursday was as sports anchor.
The anchor of the 10 O’Clock News on WNLO-TV read the sports news Thursday night because the station’s two sports regulars were a little busy with play-by-play duties.
Sports Director John Murphy was calling the Bills’ 28-23 loss in Detroit on 97 Rock. His backup, Paul Peck, was calling the University at Buffalo’s 31-0 victory over Rhode Island on WECK-AM.
Lando did a decent job, too, reading the highlights of the Bulls win and the Bills loss.
At 11 p.m., Peck anchored the sports from UB Stadium and illustrated the dangers of an anchor reporting about games he doesn’t see.
Since he was working the UB game at the same time as the Bills game, Peck’s knowledge of the NFL preseason game understandably had to be limited at best.
Fans who watched the Bills had to be scratching their heads when Peck said that the Lions scored on an interception of a Brian Brohm pass when it was rookie QB Levi Brown who threw the pick.
After the report ended, anchor Don Postles told Peck “good job out there.”
Not really. The error shouldn’t be all on Peck, who was in a very difficult situation. Channel 4 management certainly deserves some of the blame for its delay in hiring a third sports staffer before the busy fall season begins.
Peck concluded his report on the Bills game by saying the best thing “you can say is the preseason is over.”
Ray Bentley, who did the play-by-play on Channel 7, and analyst Steve Tasker, had a different take an hour earlier when the game ended.
Bentley said the Bills had the best preseason he’s seen in three years doing the games. Tasker also gave a very flattering assessment of how far the team has grown under new Coach Chan Gailey.
The positive take of the Bills announcers clearly conflicts with national prognosticators, who think the team will win two or three regular season games.
One thing is clear: Bills armchair fans are very interested in the team despite all the national negativity.
Preseason ratings for the four games on Channel 7 – three live and one tape-delayed –were up almost 40 percent from a year ago. The three live games averaged a 15.5 rating, about 25 percent higher than the 12.3 rating they averaged a year ago.
The Bills-Detroit game had a 15.5 rating despite a 6:30 p.m. start that would normally depress the ratings.
The rating for UB’s win over Rhode Island on Time Warner 13 won’t be available but it clearly didn’t have much of an impact on the Bills rating.
* Time Warner Cable’s deal with the Disney networks will provide some extras for local cable subscribers, according to a local spokesman.
TWC sports fan who subscribe to ESPN will get access to ESPN3.com, the internet channel that carries 3,500 live global events annually. Some ESPN3.com programming also will be available on TWC’s sports tier. A super college football highlights channel, ESPNGoalline, also will be available on a sports tier and will launch Saturday.
The first local bonus in the new deal arrives at 6 p.m. Saturday when the ESPN3.com coverage of Syracuse University’s football opener at Akron will be carried on Channel 87, an overflow channel in Buffalo.
The best news for a fan who isn’t that interested in sports is the eventual addition of ABC On Demand, a channel which will make prime time shows like “Castle” with Nathan Fillion and “Desperate Housewives” with Eva Longoria (see above) on the network available on demand. NBC and CBS prime time programs already have been available locally on TWC’s On Demand channel.
