Chucking Junkin'

First of all let me say how wonderful it is that baseball is back. Spring training has begun and the new World Baseball Classic begins in days. I don’t know how interesting the WBC will be but it will be baseball so I welcome it and hope it is successful. From the Braves perspective Chipper Jones and Jeff Francoeur are playing for the United States; Jorge Sosa is playing for the Dominican Republic; Andruw Jones will play for the Netherlands; and Pete Orr, Chris Reitsma, and Scott Thorman will play for Canada.

With all of the success experienced by last year’s rookie Braves I look forward to the new season and watching them develop further. It’ll be an exciting year as usual especially considering how the Mets have improved their team. John Smoltz says the Mets are the better team on paper. I think with the questionable Mets pitching, the two teams are about equal but we have 162 games to settle that.





Now in sadder Braves-related news…

It looks like Fox is buying Turner South from Time Warner. This has ten kinds of bad written all over it. When TBS started decreasing the number of Braves games they carried (at first by force and then by choice) Sports South picked up the slack. It was cool to begin with because Ernie Johnson was in the booth. Then Fox bought it and it became Fox Sports South. Thankfully they only got one game per week. Somewhere in all that there were rules put in place that limited the number of games a national network could carry of one team. Along comes Turner South. Turner South has been carrying more and more Braves games the past few years as TBS has turned itself into Syndication Sitcom City. This has never been a problem for me because our cable provider carries Turner South and the TBS announcers did the Turner South games as well. Also, the video quality didn't decrease like it does on Fox Sports South (which I guess is just considered Fox Sports Net now).

The point is that I don't like the idea of Fox buying Turner South. First off, the original programming will probably disappear completely. This means no more Three Day Weekend, no more Live From the Bluebird Café, no more Liars & Legends, and, tragically, no more Junkin’. I love Junkin’. I don’t think I’ve seen better rain-delay programming since TBS used to show All in the Family reruns. But those days are gone on TBS (what the hell is up with those car chase shows – yuck) and it looks like the Junkin’ days are over too because Turner South is not a profitable network as it is currently. It has been a very nice tribute to living in the south…well, with the exception of The Rick & Bubba Show and Yokel. But Fox isn’t going to care about keeping a cable channel intact that is bleeding red ink just because it’s a pleasant tribute to the slow-paced yet culturally-rich southeastern United States. My only hope is that maybe the other niche cable channels will pick up some of the programming. Most of the original Turner South programs seemed perfect for Home & Garden, The Travel Channel, and Food Network. One of the smaller music channels would be a nice fit for Live From the Bluebird Café and the yet-to-air Music Road. I don’t know where Junkin’ and Liars & Legends would fit but surely there’s a home some where. It just won’t be on Turner South anymore because there probably will be no more Turner South.

It seems that Fox has plans to turn the channel into an all Atlanta sports network. I don’t hate that idea. But it looks like the trend in baseball is for a team to have their own network. It has been very profitable for the Yankees and the Mets are starting their network this season. I was hoping that the eventual buyer of the Braves would have an all-Braves network as a high priority. But Fox having an Atlanta sports network that carries 80 Braves games a year would be a huge obstacle, not to mention the horrid idea of hearing Bob Rathburn and Tom Paciorek calling all those games for Fox. Maybe that fear is just unwarranted because sports announcers seem to hop around from network to network depending on whoever has the best deal with their team or sport at the time. If a Fox-owned network had a majority of Braves games all of a sudden, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for something to be worked out where Fox used the announcers that most Braves fans preferred. Of course it is Fox. Their blind arrogance is only topped by the administration which its news division fellates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I could just as easily see them sticking with their own guys. Furthermore I could see more and more Braves games being picked up for the national Saturday game that’s on the main Fox channel. That certainly would be a good way to promote a team of which you have a financial interest in their success and ratings.

Fox already owns a southern sports network though, so their Turner South acquisition (which comes complete with the channel’s Braves, Thrashers, and Hawks deals) is primarily just a way of eliminating their competition. Regardless it doesn’t bode well for the quality programming of Turner South or the future quality of Braves broadcasts. Here’s hoping for the best for the Braves organization, the Braves fans, the Braves announcers, Val and Dave.