Programming
The network was the flagship station for Buffalo Sabres National Hockey League games, but also aired collegiate sports (particularly of Syracuse University), and several sports news and talk shows. Empire also aired a significant amount of programs covering the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League, live play by play of the Buffalo Destroyers of the Arena Football League, the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National league, the Buffalo Bisons, Rochester Red Wings and Syracuse Chiefs of the International League AAA, AHL hockey, and NCAA basketball. Buffalo Bandits lacrosse also received limited coverage on the station. Games of the Toronto Raptors of the NBA also aired for several seasons until January 2005, when all original and live programming was canceled. In its latter years, the station also aired live Canadian Football League Friday Night Football games and on a tape delay Saturday mornings.
Some of Empire's programs included Fan TV, a daily two and a-half hour sports news and call-in program hosted by Howard Simon and Jim Brinson and its successor, The SimonCast, the Empire Sports Report, a nightly sportscast hosted by Mike DeGeorge, Josh Mora and Jason Bristol, and Hockey Hotline, the Sabres' postgame report hosted by NHL veteran Mike Robitaille and later with Brian Blessing. Other popular shows were Fan Forum with Bob Koshinski, which aired from 1991 to 1998 and Pros and Cons (a predecessor to Pardon the Interruption that featured WGRZ-TV's Ed Kilgore pitted against contrarian and WGR radio host Art Wander), which ran from 1992 to 1996. Former Bills punter and ESPN NFL analyst Paul Maguire also hosted the Budweiser Sportsline on the network during the NFL season; current NHL announcers Pete Weber and Danny Gare also worked for Empire along with former Buffalo Bill Steve Tasker, now of CBS. The network also aired ECW Hardcore TV produced by Extreme Championship Wrestling, a now-defunct professional wrestling promotion based in Philadelphia.
Between October 2000 and March 2004, Adelphia Communications Corporation, under VP/GM Bob Koshinski, used Empire staff to operate radio station WNSA 107.7 FM in Wethersfield Township, NY. WNSA overtook WGR-AM as the radio ratings leader in the spring of 2001, but then experienced the loss of talent, including Mike Schopp to WGR when the Rigas/Adelphia scandal broke. The end of WNSA came when the station was sold to Entercom Communications in May 2004 for $10.3 million. Entercom turned it into classic rock "107.7 The Lake." Simon's show, however, would continue on WLVL 1340 in Lockport until November 2004, when he was recruited to host WGR's morning show.
Read more about this topic: Empire Sports Network
Famous quotes containing the word programming:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)