Sportscasts get sent to the penalty box

Touchdown, homer, three-pointer, goal. ... Gone?

Gone -- at least weeknights on KVVU-TV, Channel 5, which has drop-kicked stand-alone sports segments from its 10-11:30 p.m. news block (it remains on weekends). "The sportscast is not what the viewers come to us for, research has been telling us that for years," says Fox-5 news director Adam Bradshaw, noting that newsworthy local sports stories, including UNLV games and NASCAR, will be woven into regular news content. "The economics of broadcasting dictate we put our resources in places where we're going to get ratings."

Though no local stations schedule sports at every point in their late afternoon/early evening/late night news overload, Fox-5 is the first going completely sports-less every weeknight, perhaps peeking into a model of the future.

Eclipsed by ESPN, regional sports channels and the Internet, local sportscasts have been banished to the penalty box in many markets. Surveys indicate about 30 percent of viewers are very interested in sports (versus 70 percent for weather). Many women flee from sports, but men's loyalty has been lapsing, too.

Frustrated by tune-out, some stations stripped it to one minute from a two- to four-minute average, or dumped it outright. Our locals average two to three minutes.

"There are nights when that quarter-hour isn't as strong as I'd like," says Ron Comings, news director of KLAS-TV, Channel 8, about ratings. "I haven't broken it down to say sports is running the audience off. ... But some local sportscasters haven't adapted to the change in the media environment and turned enough attention to local sports, which won't be seen anywhere else." He praises his own sports savant, Chris Maathuis, as a reporter geared toward the Las Vegas athletic scene.

Deborah Clayton, news director of KVBC-TV, Channel 3, says "we do some national sports, but we focus on local, too. When the Rebels made the finals, it led our newscast. And (sports features) are not limited to 10 or 11 p.m.," she says about earlier news and at 6 p.m., when sports is otherwise benched. The station programs the lengthier "Sports Zone" on its 10 p.m. news on KVCW-TV, Channel 33.

Karin Movesian, news director at KTNV-TV, Channel 13, says simply: "We're committed to covering local sports and have no plans to reduce sports coverage."

With a smaller news team, fewer resources and less news hours than other locals, Fox-5's sports cutback is understandable, even overdue. But Comings is correct. "Local" is the lifesaver. Sportscasters by nature want names such as A-Rod and Brett Favre to fly out of their mouths, want to project major-league personas even in minor-league markets, want to wax authoritative over the Super Bowl square-off.

But it's the Rebels, the 51s, the Wranglers, the local kid striving for the Olympics, the high-school team headed for a state championship that's the protective cup for local sports as new media forces hurl 95-mph fastballs at its groin.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.