Posted on: Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Don't close your eyes for football anymore
Advertiser Staff
"Close your eyes time" will come to a close for Hawai'i's NFL television viewers.
"Monday Night Football," a television institution for more than 35 years, will leave ABC and move to ESPN starting in 2006 as part of the NFL's reported $1.1 billion, 8-year deal with the network.
The move will end a long-time policy by ABC's local affiliate to delay the game a few hours to telecast it during Hawai'i's prime time, starting at 6:30 p.m.
It also will end a common practice among local sportscasters, who would tell viewers to "close your eyes," or "turn away from the screen" as the score was flashed.
"Our baby is gone. I'm tearing up as we speak," said Robert Kekaula, sports director of KITV, ABC's local affiliate. "It's like the child just left the house at an early age. ... Unbelievable."
"It's going to hurt those of us who have satellite dishes," said Don Murphy, owner of Murphy's Bar & Grill, which attracted patrons because of live telecasts starting at 3 or 4 p.m. "It's not going to help, unless ESPN will delay it."
A spokesperson at Oceanic Time Warner Cable, which administers ESPN programming, said the station would "never" delay the game.
"We're going to keep it live because that's not part of our contractual agreement," said Oceanic program manager Lianne Killion.
Kane'ohe's Don Neill, 75, who was a neighbor of former Monday Night Football color analyst Frank Gifford while both were students in the 1950s at Southern California, said he prefers to watch it delayed despite being retired.
"I'd watch it in the evening. I would make no effort to catch it in the afternoon. I don't think I'd watch it. Period," said Neill, who has lived here since 1965.
Honolulu's Blaine Okada, 24, a Pearl Harbor painter, said the games should be shown live.
"I don't want to wait until 6:30. I don't want to have to check my phone for Internet updates," he said.
Honolulu's Bing Huang, 35, a carpenter, who was enjoying a brew at TJ's Sports & Grill, said: "You don't have to come down to a bar. You can enjoy it at home. It's better than watching a delayed game. After you know the score, you don't want to watch the game."
However, life won't change for everyone.
"We're probably going to end up doing the same thing anyways," said Honolulu accountant Shane Chan, 25, who said he and his friends watch live feeds at Skybox "so everybody can get together."
The NFL's new broadcast deal will return football to NBC for the first time since 1997. NBC will take over the Sunday night games currently on ESPN.
The move will leave ABC as the only major network without NFL football.
"Monday Night Football" has been a fixture on ABC since the games began on prime-time in 1970, when Howard Cosell anchored the show. "Monday Night Football" stands as the second-longest running prime time network series, trailing CBS's 60 Minutes by two years.
The move to ESPN puts the Monday Night Football brand under the umbrella of The Disney Company. Disney owns both ESPN and ABC.
Advertiser staff writer Leila Wai, and Associated Press writers Dave Goldberg and David Bauder contributed to this report.
