Super Bowl faces more competition than ever
Year in, year out, the Super Bowl is the one event that brings U.S. viewers together, the one program that continues to attract an almost monolithic audience in the age of cable TV and media diversification.
Yet there are cracks in the monolith, and more than ever niche TV channels are trying to chip away fragments of the audience - those viewers who don't share America's twin obsessions with football and advertising.
The seemingly endless pregame coverage will begin at 11 a.m. Sunday on NBC's WMAQ Channel 5, with the game proper not slated until 6 p.m. In between, NBC will try to hold viewers' attention with a live interview between Matt Lauer and President Barack Obama. The game will also try to hold its audience at halftime with a performance by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
Ever since the NFL started beefing up its halftime show with more high-profile acts - including the Rolling Stones, Prince, Paul McCartney and, yes, Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" with Justin Timberlake in 2004 - it has succeeded in discouraging halftime counterprogramming stunts, such as the Fox "In Living Color" live special and MTV's "Butt Bowl" marathon of "Beavis and Butt-head" episodes. Now, even the pay-per-view Lingerie Bowl has been canceled, just as the Lingerie Football League heads for its debut in September at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates.
Yet competitive cable channels still try to counterprogram against the day's big event, with one of the most popular - and simplest - ideas being Animal Planet's "Puppy Bowl," which runs its fifth annual edition from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, complete with NFL Films announcer Harry Kalas doing the play-by-play. It even has its own "Kitten Halftime Show."
That figures to take care of kids with little interest in the game, but the other audience segment cable competition tries to target is women, who also are more likely to be averse to sports. TBS literally gives "What Women Want" with the Mel Gibson-Helen Hunt movie at 5:30 p.m., and FX runs Jennifer Lopez's "Maid in Manhattan" at 4:30, immediately followed by Jennifer Garner's "13 Going on 30" at 6:30.
The sport of the day might be football, but everyone else is running a marathon. In the tradition of the "Butt Bowl," marathons of TV episodes are big, hoping to lure a viewer in and then hold him - or, again, more likely her - with the same basic stuff. Nickelodeon again peels off kids with an "iCarly" marathon followed by "True Jackson, VP" at 6. TNT runs "The Closer," Oxygen has "America's Next Top Model," Hallmark has "I Love Lucy," Spike has the original "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and USA has "House." Then there are more specialized series, such as BBCA appealing to sci-fi geeks with "Dr. Who," Speed's "Pimp My Ride" and, last but not least, the DIY Network's "Toilet Bowl" marathon of "Bathtastic!" Most daring of all is A&E, which directly confronts football's male-dominated audience with a marathon of "The Sopranos."
Then there's all the programming around the Super Bowl. NBC will follow the game with a new episode of "The Office" featuring Jack Black. CBS horns in on ad-mania with "Super Bowl's Greatest Commercials 2009," with hosts Jim Nantz and Daisy Fuentes, at 7 p.m. Saturday on WBBM Channel 2. USA's "Monk" and "Psych" present new football-themed episodes at 8 p.m. Friday.
Finally, the football season leads right into Academy Award season with Turner Classic Movies' annual "31 Days of Oscar" festival, which kicks off Sunday with movies dedicated to advertising and the media. Just when the Super Bowl is getting rolling, TCM will present the bitter news satire "Ace in the Hole" at 7 p.m. For all the Super Bowl's video pyrotechnics, nothing in the game figures to match Billy Wilder's fantastic crane shot midway through that film. It's worth missing one of the commercials to tune over and try to catch it.