The Media Notepad: Joe Buck, Troy Aikman join ESPN’s “Monday Night Football”
Also: NewsNation makes more changes with the departure of Jon Donlon; Jussie Smollett saga ends with a jail sentence…or does it?
One thing is guaranteed next NFL season: The Bears won’t be good. Outside of that however, is the mystery of who’s going to be calling games when The NFL Lakefront Team (for now) gets blown out by the Packers again on primetime television.
The now-former Fox “A” team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are jumping ship to ESPN’s Monday Night Football next season, replacing the current trio of Steve Levy, Louis Riddick, and Brian Griese, who already left to take a job with the Denver Broncos. Lisa Salters remains the sideline reporter, and John Parry the rules analyst. The duo have been together twenty years and have called six Super Bowls for Fox.
“When you have the opportunity to bring in the iconic, longest-running NFL broadcasting duo, you take it, especially at a time when we are on the cusp of a new era in our expanding relationship with the NFL,” said Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN and Sports Content Chairman. “The NFL continues to ascend, and we now have more games than ever before, providing additional opportunities for Joe, Troy and our deep roster of commentators.”
The move is a huge boon for Disney-owned ESPN and sister broadcast network ABC, who since inheriting in 2006 has been saddled with less-than-exciting games while its announcing lineup changed as often as someone’s underwear. This is a part of the franchise’s rejuvenation, with Peyton and Eli Manning continuing with their alternate ESPN 2 broadcast on certain weeks and several games simulcasted on ABC several times a season. When the new rights deal kicks in two years from now, ESPN will get flexed games into their package with 25 contests annually.
This is the first of many announcer changes expected in th next few weeks. Al Michaels is expected to leave NBC’s Sunday Night Football to do Amazon’s Thursday Night Football package to join Kirk Herbstreit, who comes over from ESPN. Mike Trico, who filled in for Michaels a few times last season, is expected to take over the lead announcing role next season.
With the departure of Buck and Aikman, Fox would have to find a new team to call their “A” games, not to mention a new lead baseball announcer as Buck has called MLB games on Fox since the network started airing baseball in 1996. Buck called both World Series clinchers for the White Sox and Cubs in 2005 and 2016, respectively, although one championship-clinching call received a lot of criticism from their fan base (it isn’t hard to guess which one.) Even though ESPN has rights to Major League Baseball, Buck is not expected to call any games.
Another original anchor who was part of NewsNation’s launch is departing. Joe Donlon, who previously anchored at WGN-TV and beforehand, KGW-TV in Portland, Ore. will exit the Nexstar-owned news network startup on March 25. This mean The Donlon Report, which he anchors, will end.
Donlon was one of the first anchors hired when NewsNation was a three-hour block when it launched on the old WGN America on September 1, 2020. But Donlon’s interview with now-former President Trump was panned for a lack of tough questioning and despite the soft interview, given a show when NewsNation decided to abandon its news wheel, airing in the late afternoon/early evening hours.
The news of Donlon’s departure was one of many changes announced Monday by the ultra low-rated network. NewsNation quietly add a late-evening newscast focusing on developments in the War on Ukraine and is now permanent. Starting in June, evening newscast Rush Hour expands to two hours spanning from 4 to 6 p.m. CT and another hour of news added at 5 a.m. CT, leading into Morning In America.
Prime-time talk shows hosted by Dan Abrams, Ashleigh Banfield, and Leland Vittert remain on the schedule.
Since NewsNation launched, there’s been a revolving door of talent and management changes – including the departure of Jennifer Lyons, who now is vice president and general manager of CBS-owned WBBM-TV Chicago. One NewsNation alum she plucked from the startup for CBS 2 was meteorologist Albert Ramon.
Despite the changes, NewsNation still has numerous off-network dramas in its schedule. So what is the highest-rated show on the network you ask? Turns out it’s a mid-afternoon off-network repeat of Blue Bloods, who draws 327,000 viewers a day on average – more than double what lead-out Rush Hour has drawn.
The saga involving former Jussie Smollett ended last Thursday – or so we thought. And we may be hearing about the fallout for sometime to come.
Found guilty in a trial last fall for allegedly faking a hate crime and lying to police, the former Empire cast member was sentenced to 150 days in jail – roughly five months in prison and was put on probation and fined $25,000. Smollett remained defiant as he exited the courtroom, claiming he was innocent and not suicidal.
Since his sentence, Smollett was allegedly placed in a psych ward at the jail, according to his brother on Instagram. But Wednesday evening, Smollett was ordered released on bond by an Illinois Appellate Court judge pending an appeal.
As you recall, Smollett claimed he was the victim of a hate crime on a cold night in January 2019, but the story started to unravel almost immediately. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx dropped the charges, but that didn’t stop prosecutors from trying him, where he was found guilty by a jury last December on five Class 4 felonies.
Though cameras weren’t allowed in the courtroom for the trial, they were allowed for the sentencing. Chicago stations went wall-to-wall with coverage during the 6-7 p.m. “prime access” hour, pre-empting syndicated shows Entertainment Tonight and Wheel Of Fortune, among others. However, the cable news networks passed on coverage, sticking with developments in the War on Ukraine though CNBC’s The News With Shepard Smith did mention Smollett’s sentencing in passing.
Smollett still faces a lawsuit from the City of Chicago, seeking $130,000 in restitution, noting “[Chicago] is a victim of Mr. Smollett’s crimes because his false reports caused CPD to expend scarce resources that could have been devoted to solving actual crimes,” said Chicago Police superintendent David Brown last week.
Once on the hottest shows on television – at one point during an estimated 20 million viewers per week (the last scripted show to do so) Empire’s ratings started declining in its third season as the show wasn’t able to take advantage of the publicity surrounding Smollett, as his character was written off the series during the show’s fifth season. Empire ended two years ago, but filming for its final season was cut short due to the pandemic, depriving fans (basically for the few who stuck around) of a satisfying ending.