I wish you ran things at KSDK sports, Gail. There are 162 baseball games and one Wimbledon (check the spelling) men’s final. Hello?!! Of course we all know why KSDK kisses up to the Cardinals. My disdain for KSDK started last year with their Cardinal telecasts interrupting major sports events, but this had to take the cake. No, wait, I think my disdain started when they booted Malcolm Briggs and brought in Rene Knott, the robot. KSDK relegated the US Women’s Open golf final to channel 46. Do you think they would do that to Tiger? Nope. They didn’t carry a Cardinals game that day. Nor are they telecasting a baseball game the day of the PGA Championship final round or the BMW championship final round. Hmmmmm. KSDK just sucks.

I might be the only person that feels this way, but I think KSDK pretty much did the only thing they could have done given the situation. There was no way they could have known that it was going to be the longest finals match in history coupled with a couple of rain delays. It’s just unfortunate for them that it was also a Cards/Cubs game as well which was a big deal to most as well. They were going to be raked over the coals no matter what they did. I watched both with no problem, giving my attention to whichever was relevant at the moment. If I have any beef, they maximized the Cards when Wimbledon was at commercial, but didn’t do the same when the Cards were at commercial, didn’t really get that.

Folks just remember that KSDK is for sale to the highest bidder. KSDK has increasingly made it’s air time for sale. If you ever seen, Show-Me St. Louis most of that show paid for. This Rebecca lady is just dumb person who has no idea about what true broadcasting is. She has shown time and time again that she and her staff can’t be trusted to do the right thing. Gannett and KSDK used to be the premier station in St. Louis. They really suck now. The station has no class. KSDK is a sell-out to true news and events around the world. I am almost concidering forming a citizens commission to determine what staff should be fired and what staff should stay. Since the management can’t be trusted to do the right thing!

I will have to agree with Marty on this one. They should have had the Wimbledon final full screen with the ballgame minimized or even sent the ballgame to Channel 46 until the tennis match was over. I don’t think they did what they could, they did what would bring the least amount of heat from any one side, instead of someone taking charge and broadcasting the end of the tennis match and then cutting to the Cardinals game afterwards, so they took the easy way out, do an even split screen so neither baseball nor tennis fans could watch their choice. KSDK needs new management staff!!

They should have sent one or the other to Channel 46. I couldn’t see the baseball or the tennis ball on that split screen and I have 20/20 vision.
I sure the arrangement they have with Channel 46 is a contractual one and because of rain delays and the length of the tennis match a agreement was not completed before hand.

Does anybody really think that KSDK gives a **** about YOU the viewer? Originally my problems started with last years hockey playoffs. The inept, totally unprofessional way that that situation was handled was completely unnecessary. Not everybody is a baseball fan. I laughed out loud when the brainiacs at KSDK decided to pre-empt their own network programming to show REPEATS of KSDK’s ‘Look at me, Look at me…We’re the greatest’ shows during sweeps. I would rather watch repeats than listen to any news programs.
WHY DON’T THEY LISTEN?!?!

You have to remember that KSDK didn’t have the ability to just “send something” to WRBU-46. They have to set things up in advance, which they’ve done for lots of other sporting events…that they knew *in advance* they’d have an issue regarding. Mother Nature was the culprit here forcing an unfortunate situation that KSDK did the best of.

As for which event should have been the primary one (featuring audio)…not to belittle the importance of the Wimbledon final (and a heck of one at that) but if you sample the area to find the number of people who cared about a Cards/Cubs rubber game versus tennis, I think the former would prevail.

Shuttletrain: thanks for the “citizen’s commission” comment. I needed that laugh! And I’m sure Gannett’s brass is shaking right now. KSDK more than meets their public service requirements with news and weather coverage, and if they choose to sell (openly disclaimed) feature advertising on SMSL or in prime time and to cover baseball instead of tennis I think they’ll be just fine.

This never happened when the games were on KPLR!

Folks…the Cardinals are #1 in St. Louis/Perryville/Cape/anywhere. Channel 5 has to, just like everybody else who carries them, sign an agreement that says the Cardinals come first…period. Channel 5 cannot move them, delay them, choose not to carry them…etc. The Radio contract is the same as well. The Rams, Blues, Wimbeldon, Golf…everybody has to take a back seat to the Birds. If Channel 5 doesn’t follow the contract to the letter, the Cardinals go elsewhere. They make more money on the Cardinals, they get more exposure…its a better revenue maker. So as long as Channel 5 has them, this stuff WILL happen. Learn to live with it or send Channel 11 some cash to get them back in 5 years.

Is KSDK under contractual agreements with the Cardinals? Not sure. The most annoying thing I thought was them not even getting Wimdledon sound on there when the Card’s game went to commercial. Lame. Maybe they wouldn’t have gotten advert money if the silenced the commercials. It sucked though.

I cannot believe that I watched that tennis match, wait a minute, WIMBLEDON, for hours, only to be interurrupted by the Cards/Cubs game. I can hear Jay Randolph many times during the year, but Wimbledon is ONCE A YEAR!!! And what a great match it was. Too bad the split screen didn’t allow us to hear the commentary. I am a huge Cardinals fan, and I love the rivalry with the Cubs, but I would gladly miss this game to have watched the end of one of the greatest tennis matches ever played. KSDK really dropped the ball on this one.

The Cards/Cubs game was on other stations for cable viewers. So, KDSK could have run a crawler on the bottom of the screen saying the ballgame would be picked up in progress once tennis was over. And, that fans could watch on TBS/WGN or the radio or whatever in the meantime.

Ha! I actually managed to not laugh while typing this.

This is the “Heidi” dilema but excelled by sports. Remember when a tight game was halted to start the movie Heidi. Well, now we just have shows starting later to make up for late-running games. But, what do you do when one game is starting before another ends. For example, what should/would a station do if a close game between two rivals was still going on at 3:15 when a Rams game was to begin? Outside of the market it’s play game #1 to the end and show game#2 after that already in progress.
But what is the local market to do?

I am glad I am not the GM at KSDK. But, if I was I would make sure KSDK wasn’t so unwatchable every Sunday. From the morning news to the late-night sports show, it’s trading off between “Cardinals, Cardinals, Cardinals” and “Hey, aren’t we so great here at Ch. 5″.

One more gripe about KSDK and Cardinal games.

Why does the closed captioning run at the top of the screen where the score, pitch count, outs are? You cannot read the vital game information for the Closed Captioning.

There seems to be nothing of import at the bottom of the screen, why can’t they run the CCs there?

Cards have (I beleive) a 5 year agreement with KSDK…radio contracts are renewed every two years for affilate stations (different for the flagship stations) Network programming can be moved, altered, delayed or pre-empted per NBC’s aggrement with Channel 5. The Cardinals cannot. For the duration of their contract Channel 5 will have to be creative with Network or other programming. This includes rain delays. They can’t just drop a game and say, Sorry…they have to stay with it throughout.

In trying to please everyone they ticked everyone off. I can see how on paper this looked like a good idea. After all, this is exactly how they sell today’s PIP-equipped TVs: you can watch two things at once! Perfect for the armchair quarterback, catch both of the big games. How could this fail? Gosh, maybe they should’ve run the audio from the Cards on the left channel and tennis on the right!

I wonder if the advent of digital broadcasting next year will give stations the freedom to bump conflicting programs like this to a subchannel, without significant advance notice or planning?

@ suzyjax:

“The Cards/Cubs game was on other stations for cable viewers. So, KDSK could have run a crawler on the bottom of the screen saying the ballgame would be picked up in progress once tennis was over. And, that fans could watch on TBS/WGN or the radio or whatever in the meantime”

TBS was blacked out in St. Louis market (and all of Missouri, Illinois and elsewhere) and the Cubs feed was not on WGN but on Comcast SportsNet Chicago, a station unavailable south of Springfield. So KSDK *was* the only TV option.

I think Channel 5 needs to give up on the Cardinals broadcasts. It seems like they are always making someone mad when broadcasts overlap. I am on the other side of the fence on this one and couldn’t have cared less about the tennis match and was mad I couldn’t watch the Cards game on a full screen. Personally I think Channel 5’s broadcasts of the Cardinals games and their pregame show are absolutely awful. I miss channel 11’s broadcasts! Channel 5 needs to decide if they are going to show national broadcasts or Cards games, it just doesn’t work to do both.

I think KSDK should have cut from both feeds and just played the Walt Disney Classc “Heidi”…

Here’s the deal. It’s tennis. If you are a fan of a second tier sport (and yes, that would be tennis) you should realize by now that you won’t always get to watch your event on prime time local TV. The list of major world sporting events that don’t get local TV coverage is a long one- futbul/soccer championships, The Grey Cup, many college baseball and wrestling events, virtually all NCAA women’s sports or anything beyond Division I, etc. But you don’t see those fans complaining because they understand it’s all economics when it comes to commercial TV.

The tennis match was in England, and neither of these guys were Americans let alone local. So who cares? There’s no way Wimbledon would have had as much local fan interest (or local advertiser support) as a Cubs/Cards game even if there are 162 baseball games in a year. As such, KSDK should have directed Wimbledon fans to the internet to watch it on their website and just stuck with the baseball game.

It’s not about kissing up to the Cardinals. Commercial TV has never been about pleasing fans- it’s about pleasing advertisers. If you didn’t get the 1968 Heidi reference above, NBC (and yes, KSDK) cut from a live football game to a Disney movie 40 years ago to please Timex who had paid a lot of money to sponsor the movie. KSDK’s airtime has always been for sale, nothing has changed.

I am a Cardinals fan and loving watching the games as much as the next guy – especially Cards/Cubs, but who was in charge of making one of the most bone-headed decisions in sports television history? I would love to know what the thought process was behind this decision. Why would KSDK as a TV station, that attempts to have the best sports department in the area, decide to blunder one of the greatest, if not greatest ever, Wimbledon Championship matches that mind you was already IN PROGRESS in a fifth set (rare to have a 5 set match in a major championship final) so it was already easily reasonable for an educated sports fan to conclude they were watching one of the greatest matches in tennis history as the 5-time defending champ was attempting to come back from a 2 sets to nothing deficit and achieve what no man has achieved since the 1800s and never in the open era by winning 6 straight Wimbledon titles?

Any person of sufficient mental sports capacity should realize that putting such a monumental tennis match in a side-by-side picture with one of 162 regular season Cardinals baseball games (one of roughly 18 that are played against the Cubs each year) was a terrible idea but then KSDK went on to further magnify an already poor decision by playing the audio of baseball commentators (I really need to hear Mike Shannon babble on about tennis by the way) and associated commercials rather than much more crucial audio from the tennis, especially considering that a viewer could have easily tuned their radio into 550 AM if they had wanted the baseball play-by-play. It is sad when I have to sit literally directly in front of a 50-inch high def TV with the volume muted in order to try and concentrate on sports history in the making – struggling to determine if tennis shots were being called out, whether the match would potentially be postponed on account of darkness or what players were visibly distressed about during key components of the late games. (speaking of darkness, KSDK producers should have been able to conclude that the tennis coverage would inevitably end by a certain time, such that only the first few innings of the baseball game would be missed, given the dwindling daylight and no source of artificial light on Wimbledon’s center court so that if the 5th set, which is not settled by a tiebreaker, should continue for an extended period of time, it would be necessary for the match to be postponed until Monday – I guess they didn’t think of that though either.)

The outcome of KSDK’s decision was a complete injustice to true sports fans, tennis fans and Cardinals fans alike in the St. Louis area. I’m so thankful that your parent company handled the Monday finish to the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in a much more professionally manner. Could you have imagined watching Tiger Woods vs. Rocco Mediate play one of the greatest golf matches on a split screen with Days of Our Lives (of course the audio would have to be Days of Our Lives as well)?

If KSDK couldn’t have found a way to put the tennis match or the baseball game on an NBC sister channel, as others have suggested and was apparenlty considered, clearly the early innings of the Cardinals game should have been pre-empted by the Wimbledon coverage. Heck, you could have shown recap highlights of the early baseball innings during the tennis commercials if you really wanted. Not to mention there are many ways for a person in St. Louis to enjoy the Cubs/Cardinals series (i.e. go to the game itself, tv, radio, etc.) but pretty much only one realistic way to watch Wimbledon.

What was KSDK thinking? I would say the station owes St. Louis sports fan an apology, but I don’t think that would suffice as you have already robbed us of enjoying one of the greatest live moments in sports history. Perhaps the best course of action would be for KSDK to relinquish its local programming control to the national level and let CW11 or Fox Sports Midwest televise all future Sunday Cardinals games. Sounds like the Cardinals really control KSDK - seeing they already conceded to delay the start of the game by an hour that day at the request. Sadly it is all about dollars in today’s world and not viewer’s choice.

Wonder what would have happened if say Game 7 of the World Series was on with the Cardinals tied in the 9th inning but first quarter action from a worthless Ram’s football game was about to start, think Fox would go to split screen and Ram’s audio over the national World Series programming?

NEWSchannel 5’s broadcasts of Cardinals baseball is horrible! The only way that I can stand to watch there telecast is to turn the volume down and turn on the radio to listen to KTRS. Sunday is game day? Are you kidding me? Sunday is groan day! I can’t help but groan as I listen to Jay Randolph as the rest of the NEWSchanel 5 personnel cover the game. I wish I had the money at my disposal to allow Channel 11 to pick up the games that FSN does not cover. NEWSchannel 5 should stick to what they claim to do best - the news!

cardsfn80 is on the right track…Channel 5 KNEW they were going to have problems with Golf and other sports, so they should have made better plans. However, Cardinal baseball is a HUGE money maker for radio and TV. That’s why Channel 11, 5 and everyone else bids for it when the contract comes up. No station in their right mind would give up revenue just to keep a certain section of fans happy (golf, tennis, figure skating etc) These network programs don’t sell as well on a local level. Some events sell better than others, but none as well as the Cardinals. Don’t think for a moment that 2, 4, and 11 wouldn’t do the same thing is faced with this problem. 11 has a better situation since it has no network sports to speak of. Plus Channel 5’s pre and post game are awful (Deanne Lane on the Cardinals? Give me a break)

This was truly one of the greatest tennis matches ever. Period.
To cut the viewers off at the climax of this historical event was distasteful and rude. Shame on you, KSDK.

Here’s the REAL question…both Dan Caesar and Gail Pennington KNOW that Channel 5 has a contractual obligation to carry the Cardinals…NO ifs ands or buts. But then again, if they write an article saying that very thing, would anyone read it? Bottom line…when Channel 5 signed the contract they KNEW they would have conflicts. They’ve adjusted their schedule as often as possible. A 2 1/2 hour rain delay couldn’t be planned for and they did what they could. They had no other option other than to totally drop the tennis match. Channel 46 is not sitting wround all day waiting for Channel 5 to call them. You can’t blame the Cardinals either. IF Channel 5 won’t give them exclusive rights, 2, 4, or 11 will. Learn to live with it folks. It WILL happen again.

What is going on?

KSDK screwed-up again, plain and simple.

TBS was supposed to carry the game anyway, but KSDK got local rights to it. Those should be lost when something prempts the coverage, Wimbleton in this case. TBS should have carried the Cards game and KSDK would have done Wimbledon.

It was awful shrunk down!!!

Given the enormity of the match, it’s pretty clear that KSDK botched the situation. Though it may have upset Cardinal Nation (hey - I like the Cards as much as the next guy), the right thing to do was to give Wimbledon the full broadcast. Missing the first few innings of a regular season game would have have upset some cards fans to be sure. It may even have cost KSDK some money.

But I think broadcasters have an obligation to finish sports broadcasts - especially when the match is that HUGE and the outcome is still in doubt. Now my recollection of watching arguably the best tennis match ever will be forever marred by the fact that KSDK shoved it, and me along with it, into the corner.

Here’s why…if Wimbledon is allowed to continue a two things happen: 1) The station loses revenue. Ads not played is money thrown away. No they can’t be placed elsewhere. If you pay for the Cardinals you don’t want tennis. 2) The Cardinals cite Channel 5 for breach of contract and Channel 11, 2 or 4 carries the Cardinals next year. That equals a total loss of revenue that won’t be replaced. Major league baseball decides who carries what games. WGN (the Chicago affilate) is usually blacked out in the St. Louis market during Cards/Cubs games. Whether its game 1 or 162…it doesn’t matter.

I wish they would replay the tennis match.

I REALLY WISH THAT CHANNEL 11 WOULD HANDLE THE SUNDAY GAMES. KSDK ALWAYS INTERRUPTS THE BASEBALL GAME WITH 1. ANNOYING “INTERVIEWS” BY CUSAMANO IN THE STANDS WHILE THE GAME IS GOING ON AND WE CAN’T SEE A THING AND 2. ANY “NEWS” BULLETIN….STORY AT 11 PM….INTERRUPTION…BUT, YESTERDAY’S SPLIT SCREEN “BOMB” WAS THE WORST DECISION YET.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE SHOW OUR CARDINALS SUNDAY GAMES ON CHANNEL 11.

A “FED UP WITH KSDK” CARDINAL FAN

I thought it was pretty lame. I figured it was a contract issue where they got stuck with 2 events at the same time. I laughed at their solution. It bothered me enough that I decided not to watch either of them. So not even any advertising made its way to me. Knew they’d get comments no matter what they did. But that’s the way it is today. There’s always somebody who is not happy and ready to scream about it. I’d say, this is Cardinals Nation and if you don’t like it, get a satellite or go online of just suck it up. Do we have to make everything pleasing to everybody? Whats left? Nothing of substance for fear of irritating someone. ~geeeez~

To all the people who want the Cardinals back on channel 11–channel 11 doesn’t broadcast in HD. There’s no way the cardinals would go back to standard definition broadcasts, even if they could break out of their contract with KSDK.

KSDK did what it had to do–fulfill it’s contractual obligations as well as please the most people. I was able to tell just fine what was going on in the tennis match without commentators.

I am furious with KSDK. Furious. I have watched Wimbledon Men’s Final on Sunday morning for over a decade. So, you can understand my frustration when KSDK relegated a once a year event to the bottom of the viewing screen.

And, to not maximize the Wimbledon screen during baseball breaks was plain arrogant. I may accept the argument that there may be more baseball fans in the metro area than there are tennis fans (sad!), but since when are there more fans of commercials?

Shame.

If I could’ve controlled the sound, I’d have shut off Jay Randolph and watched the Cards/Cubbies and listened to/watched Nadal/Federer.

When KSDK received the rights to broadcast Cardinal games, I didn’t care. When they announced Jay Randolph, I moaned. Jay of the phantom home run call in Montreal years ago…”The Cardinals win!” as the left fielder catches the ball and runs to the dugout for the bottom of the 9th inning.

Jay “I never met a stat I didn’t like or wouldn’t disclose on air” Randolph. Who cares if someone is hitting .350 during night games on Tuesday under a full moon with a partly cloudy sky and the temperature is over 60 and the game starts between 7:00 and 7:15?

Sheesh!

Seriously, this is only a big deal because the media labeled this tennis match the “greatest of all time.” Nobody else in St. Louis cares except the tens of people that commented here. CARDS-CUBS will always be a bigger deal than Wimbledon to St. Louis. Period.

I’m absolutely disgusted with KSDK. There’s one Wimbledon Final that I wait for all year. I think a cardinals pre-all-star break game, can take backseat for once!! KSDK is too obsessed with being “the” cardinals station, even though channel 11 has always had them beat. I’m a cards fan too and if something other than Wimbledon interrupted the game I probably just would have listened to the game on the radio, which is better than KSDK anyway.

Only one Wimbeldon a year, there you have it. Should have been a no brainer.

Go Cards!

It’s called contractual obligation to both the Cardinals and the advertisers who bought time to be place during a Cardinals broadcast. They are all in it for the bottom line of revenue and not our viewing pleasure. My personal preference would have been Cardinals since I’m not a tennis fan at all - but we are all entitled to our favorite sport or sports to watch. Seems like (as a previous poster noted) this was kind of a baited question by the P-D to get people to diss on KSDK since they surely know about contractual obligations. Any of the other stations would have done the same thing and you would be ragging on their programming decisions and staff.

I have one thing to say to all Cardinals fans who are arguing that the Cardinals game was a priority over the tennis match. Imagine watching the seventh game of the World Series. It’s the bottom of the ninth, tie game and the television station switches the program to a first round tennis match. How would you feel?

As a Cardinals fan and a tennis fan, I can say that KSDK made the wrong decision. They took away audio to arguably the greatest tennis match in the history of the sport in favor of a Cubs/Cards game that is essentially meaningless at this point in the season.

I love the Cards, especially when they are playing the Cubs. It was a huge mistake for KSDK to disregard Wimbledon - the premier tennis tournament. Shame on KSDK. They really came off like an amateur station by not realizing which venue was a bigger draw. There is no excuse for this mistake.

Nothing was happening during the baseball game and I LOVE baseball. Wimbledon was the story right than and you couldn’t even tell the score to keep along.

KSDK’s coverage has been weak, never thought I would prefer Rich Gould over a rock , but I would take him over Rene Knott any day.

As far as Jay and Rick, two truly nice men but really do nothing to enhance the game.

If KSDK had other commitments they should have never made a bid of the games. What make it even more dumb is TBS had the game so they could have just passed on showing it all togehter.

Just a quick note.
Channel 11 does have an HD feed.
Enjoyed “Smallville” in HD all season and happily not preempted by Cardinals games or any others for that matter.

Channel 11’s HD feed via Charter was ridiculously bad for Blues hockey games. Don’t know why. Couldn’t even watch the game on that channel, had to just go to the regular broadcast channel - was pretty disappointing.

Couldn’t agree more about the comments another person made regarding Frank Cusamano’s riveting interviews from the stands at Busch Stadium. What a tool that guy is! Channel 5 would probably be better served broadcasting Cardinal games without audio than the garbage they have working the games.

KSDK is going to the dogs. Their entire sports dept stinks! From the insufferable lamentations of Renee Knott to the grade school quality production standards on the Cards games. And don’t get me started on Jay Randolph. He was a great announcer….30 years ago! Send him packing! And his little lapdog Ricky Horton, too!

Send in Hrabosky!

Why couldn’t Channel 5 have converted 5.2HD to Wimbledon and leave 5.1HD with the Cardinals. That would have been better than what they did.

Also, what is the contract with KSDK with NBC? I believe they have some say so about what they must show. Maybe NBC needs to say, these are programs that can’t be pre-empted.