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News Nuggets, 08.18.05
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Compiled from staff reports and electronic dispatches

Talk 1070 touts Pirates, Panthers, new shows

Weekly call-in shows featuring East Carolina football coach Skip Holtz and Carolina Panthers coach John Fox get top billing in the fall programming lineup of WNCT-AM Talk 1070.

The Greenville station, which boasts the most powerful AM signal in the region of North Carolina east of I-95, announced in a Wednesday news release a roster of programs heavily slanted toward coverage of the Pirates and Panthers.

As an affiliate of the Pirate Sports Radio Network, Talk 1070 will also carry the live play-by-play coverage of ECU's games, and the station is the exclusive Greenville area outlet for Panthers network programming, including game broadcasts.

The ECU game day coverage will include extensive pre-game and post-game programming, the station said.

New evening programs on Talk 1070 are headlined by a weekly show pairing a tandem of local sports icons, former ECU football coach Steve Logan and former Pirates basketball coach Mike Steele.

The station, in a partnership with Triangle Sports Talk 1490AM/1090AM in the Raleigh-Durham market, will also simulcast "Pirate Talk with Denny O'Brien," a two-hour weekly call-in show focused on ECU sports. The program is anchored for the second straight season by O'Brien, a columnist for Bonesville.net.

"The Brian Bailey Show," eastern North Carolina's longest-running sports call-in show, once again will join the Talk 1070 slate. Host Bailey is Sports Director of WNCT-TV 9 and a columnist for Bonesville.net.

"Taco Bell Tuesday Tailgate" with Patrick Johnson and Geoff
Thompson will also be in the station's weekly rotation of programs.

Talk 1070's daytime roster of news and talk starts off with the long-running "Talk of the Town with Henry Hinton," which is set to expand and re-debut on Wednesday, Aug. 24, in a new time period from 7:00-9:00 a.m. The second hour will be replayed daily in the 5:00-6:00 p.m. drive-time slot the show has customarily occupied.

Talk of the Town is a community-oriented news and talk program hosted by Hinton, a veteran broadcaster and the owner of Talk 1070. Hinton is also a columnist for Bonesville.net.

Hinton attributed the transition in the station's flagship program to a a need for more local content in the early drive-time period and a recognition that the target audience is growing.

“It is time for us to offer more local news and information in the mornings,” Hinton said in a statement. “This market needs a local information-based, full-service morning show, and our research indicates that the time has come to offer the kind of morning programming heard in larger markets that focuses on local issues and information instead of just national ones.”

The syndicated national shows of Laura Ingraham, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity highlight the rest of each day's lineup, said the station's release, which added that sports talk programming from Sporting News radio will be a regular staple on evenings and weekends.

Most of the station's local programs will be simulcast on television through Cable 7, Talk 1070's sister station which reaches approximately 55,000 homes in Pitt, Martin and Beaufort counties.

The station's new evening programming schedule will commence on Monday, Aug. 22.

Fort Worth Bowl embraces Mountain West, TCU

The Fort Worth Bowl will feature one of the top three teams from the Mountain West conference from 2006-09.

The deal, which was announced Wednesday, also makes it possible for the bowl to pick Texas Christian regardless of where it finishes in the league. The game is played in TCU's on-campus stadium.

This year's Fort Worth Bowl will be Dec. 23 and will feature a team from Conference USA against a Big 12 team.

``Additional exposure in the state of Texas is certainly welcomed,'' said Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson, whose other league members are Air Force, Brigham Young, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah and Wyoming.

NYC schools reap windfall from NCAA-NIT deal

NEW YORK — The NCAA owns college basketball's postseason. Really.

The organization that made March mad with the 65-team national championship tournament, purchased the rights to the preseason and postseason National Invitation Tournaments as part of a settlement that ends a four-year legal fight between the two parties.

The 40-team postseason NIT, which is a year older and was once the bigger event, will now be run by the NCAA.

In the deal announced Wednesday at a news conference at Madison Square Garden, the NCAA will pay $56.5 million to the five New York City colleges that operate the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association, the organization that has run the NIT since 1940.

Fordham University, Manhattan College, St. John's University, Wagner College and New York University will receive $40.5 million for the rights to tournaments and $16 million in litigation fees over a 10-year period.

``We have resolved all differences,'' NCAA president Myles Brand said. ``We found a way to go forward. This is a significant agreement.''

Brand said the tournaments will continue to be played in Madison Square Garden for at least the next five years, and ESPN will continue to televise both tournaments.

NYU president John Sexton, who represented the MIBA, said it wasn't a case of the schools settling for the money because of a turn in the civil trial — in which the NIT had claimed the NCAA was trying to put it out of business — that began two weeks ago in federal court.

``You can't predict at any point in a trial where it is or where it's going,'' said Sexton, an attorney. ``We had objectives. We wanted to see the NIT preserved, preserved as a New York asset and wanted to try and create a world where it can become even better than it is.''

The 2005 Preseason NIT, scheduled for November, will go on without change, Brand said. The NCAA will begin immediately to devise a system to select the teams for both NIT's. Brand said the committee which selects and seeds the field of 65 will not be involved with the postseason NIT.

``We will start working as soon as we leave this room, and over the next few weeks we will have to work double time,'' he said.

The NCAA running the Preseason NIT, one of several exempt events, won't have an effect on current legislation regarding the rule that prohibits Division I teams from playing in more than two exempt tournaments in a four-year period.

``That rule is due to be considered by the NCAA through its normal governance process over the next three-to-six months,'' Brand said. ``That issue is on the table, and the Division I Board of Directors will take it up likely in October but no later than January.''

Brand said the NCAA would try to honor commitments made with schools and future Preseason NIT fields.

On Tuesday, a jury that had been listening to NIT witnesses and evidence in Manhattan was sent home for the day by U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum after lawyers said a deal had been struck to end the dispute.

Sexton said the schools were pleased with the outcome.

``It was victory without a defeat,'' he said. ``We have nurtured the NIT through the decades. The time has come to see it taken to a new level.''

News Nuggets are compiled periodically based on material supplied by staff members; data published by ECU, Conference USA and its member schools; and reports from Associated Press and other sources. Copyright 2005 Bonesville.net and other publishers. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Page Updated: 02/23/2007 12:27 PM