Figure skating takes center stage this weekend as ABC presents the 40th anniversary of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships from Atlanta, which is topped only by the Olympics and the World Championships in viewer interest. ABC will provide three days of coverage beginning Saturday with a double feature.
From 4-6 p.m., the dance and men's live skate competition will be televised, and from 8-11 p.m. the always popular ladies and pairs programs highlight coverage.
Michelle Kwan, a seven-time U.S. champion and four-time world champion, headlines the prime-time coverage Saturday. Her primary competition will come from Sasha Cohen, a two-time silver medalist at nationals (2000, 2002) but arguably one of the top skaters on the circuit.
Coverage will continue Sunday from 4-6 with the Skating Spectacular, an exhibition of champions.
Terry Gannon will host coverage, with five-time World champion Dick Button and three-time World champion Peggy Fleming, as well as Olympic silver medalist Peter Carruthers, former U.S. Ice Dance champion Susie Wynne and Monday Night Football reporter Lisa Guerrero.
Can't fool us
Predictably, ratings for the BCS National Championship game were down, most likely because avid football fans thought the real national champ was decided in the Rose Bowl, whose ratings were up.
The Sugar Bowl, featuring LSU-Oklahoma Sunday night, earned a 14.8/23 final Nielsen rating (the second-lowest in the six-year history of the BCS title game), down 14 percent from last year's 17.2/29 for the Fiesta Bowl between Miami and Ohio State.
Are you ready for No. 2?
Country Music Television recently aired the top television moments in country music history, and coming in at No. 2 was Hank Williams Jr.'s Are You Ready for Some Football? that precedes Monday Night Football.
The theme, an adaptation on Williams' All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight, was ranked behind only Alan Jackson's Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)?, which he sang on the 2001 Country Music Awards.
Going to the movies
According to the Dallas Morning News, ESPN will continue in the television movie-making business, with plans for 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story and Hustle: The Pete Rose Story.
The network also is planning films on the 1977-78 world champion Yankees, track star Roger Bannister's breaking of the four-minute mile in 1953, the Army football cheating scandal of 1951 and NBA referee Bob Delaney's previous life as an undercover agent infiltrating the New Jersey mob.
Quote of the week
"Have you read Pete Rose's book? How many of you plan to get around to reading Pete Rose's book? In the book, Pete Rose admits that he bet on baseball games. So that's quite a revelation, but that's not the worst of it. He also admits that several times he taped the game without the express written consent of Major League Baseball."
