across all platforms
I noticed something odd this afternoon watching my Oklahoma Sooners struggle and eventually triumph over the U-Dub Huskies. During the half-time show, the announcers kept referring to “ESPN on ABC.” I knew both ESPN and ABC are owned by the nice folks at Disney, but it seemed like a strange turn of phrase. Could this be the new branding for sports programming on ABC? Indeed it is. Even the graphics indicating the scores are marked as “ESPN,” rather than ABC.
This press-release-like AP story does little to explain the change in branding, except that it gives Disney to consolidate its sports programming and Web properties under a single brand. Considering the conglomeration has shuffled ABC’s venerable “Monday Night Football” to ESPN, I suppose this makes sense, but, at the same time, ABC has started running college games on Saturday nights, which was once the sole province of cable content providers like ESPN and TBS.
Further complicating the “ESPN on ABC” branding is the way that ABC is promoting its high-definition programming. When plugging next week’s showdown between OU and U of O, the announcer said it was on “HD on ABC.” Is the game on ESPN, ESPN on ABC, or HD on ABC? More importantly, is the game on channel 3, 52, or 53? I imagine in the age of interactive program guides, prestige viewers (unlike me) just scroll through channels until they find they game they want, while extended-basic losers like me flip through channels looking for the OU game.
Even worse, now they’re going to have to call it “ESPN(-HD) on ABC’s Wide World of Sports,” or something similarly horrible. Of course, that’s assuming they even still run that show (I think they do sometimes for bike races and similarly forgettable events). I wonder if that old “agony of defeat” footage of the guy wiping out over the ski jump will look as cool in HD. -Erich