ESPN Ombudsman addresses excessive coverage of certain topics

• ESPN Ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber addresses saturation of certain topics:

"If you want to avoid redundancy on a given day, the only antidote is to limit your viewing.

In fact, ESPN presumes that is what you do. The ESPN research department's analysis of Nielsen data indicates that the average viewer, unlike me and perhaps many of my correspondents, watches ESPN an average of 39 minutes a day.

• Among male viewers 18-34, average viewing time increases to 49 minutes a day."

The male 18-34 viewer, listener, consumer is buying ESPN the most. Ms. Schreiber has done an outstanding job so far, but I've scaled back my initial enthusiasm. Not because of her efforts, but a realization that nothing will ever change at ESPN. She can get the guys to give quotes, obtain research from them they might not ordinarily do, but nothing substantive will change.

• Schreiber has a quote here from long-time Boston Globe sports editor now ESPN Sr. VP of News, Vince Doria, on their saturation coverage of Roger Clemens. Doria thinks Clemens is a big story. The excessive Clemens coverage seems to put more "proof" on the side of too much Yankees, but it's really not the case. Boston people are obsessed with Clemens.

New York baseball fans don't care about Clemens in general. New York sports radio station WFAN is a better barometer of what concerns NY baseball fans, and the subject of Clemens was never taken up with enthusiasm there. Francesa earlier in the season said he'd rather lose than have Clemens back, and I agreed. Jed Drake is a Red Sox fan.

• There's no real competition to balance ESPN's opinions. You'll either be ignored or ridiculed if you attempt to. The Ombudsman does a good job, but it seems her articles are just to educate us, not to empower us to change ESPN.

From Le Anne Schreiber's ESPN Ombudsman column, 6/7/07, ESPN.com, "Fighting 'Tyranny of the Storyline'."

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