Radio and Television Coverage
ABC play-by-play man Al Michaels, who spent three years in San Francisco as an announcer for the San Francisco Giants, was nominated for an Emmy Award for news broadcasting after giving an eyewitness account of the aftermath of the earthquake at Candlestick Park.
This would be the last World Series that ABC would televise from start to finish (and also the last they would produce themselves) and the last MLB game on ABC, period, until July 1994. The television rights would move exclusively (ABC had shared coverage with NBC since 1976 up until the end of the 1989 season) to CBS the following year. ABC would next televise a World Series in 1995, but only broadcast Games 1, 4, and 5 (the other games were covered by NBC, who had a joint venture with ABC and MLB called The Baseball Network).
Due in part to the earthquake and subsequent interruption of play, as well as the four-game sweep by the A's, ABC only drew an overall Nielsen rating of 16.4 for the Series. This was the first World Series since the introduction of prime-time games in 1971 to draw a rating of less than 20.
CBS Radio also covered the Series, with Jack Buck and Johnny Bench in the broadcast booth. This was Buck's seventh and last World Series call for CBS Radio, as he moved to CBS' television coverage of baseball the following year. Bench continued to call the World Series on radio through 1993 as Vin Scully's color man.
Read more about this topic: 1989 World Series
Famous quotes containing the words radio and, radio and/or television:
“Having a thirteen-year-old in the family is like having a general-admission ticket to the movies, radio and TV. You get to understand that the glittering new arts of our civilization are directed to the teen-agers, and by their suffrage they stand or fall.”
—Max Lerner (b. 1902)
“Denouement to denouement, he took a personal pride in the
certain, certain way he lived his own, private life,
but nevertheless, they shut off his gas; nevertheless,
the bank foreclosed; nevertheless, the landlord called;
nevertheless, the radio broke,
And twelve o’clock arrived just once too often,”
—Kenneth Fearing (1902–1961)
“They [parents] can help the children work out schedules for homework, play, and television that minimize the conflicts involved in what to do first. They can offer moral support and encouragement to persist, to try again, to struggle for understanding and mastery. And they can share a child’s pleasure in mastery and accomplishment. But they must not do the job for the children.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)