SMW Q&A With Doug White

Sports Media Watch had a chance to speak with ESPN Senior Director, Programming and Acquisitions Doug White on Friday, in advance of ESPN beginning its coverage of the 2010 NBA Playoffs. Among the topics of conversation: the number of NBA Playoff games on ABC, the decision to have Cavaliers/Bulls Game 4 air on ABC over Lakers/Thunder, and competition from the NHL Stanley Cup Final.

SMW: I wanted to know in particular what the thought process was behind ABC deciding to skip Game 4 between the Lakers and Thunder and go with Cavaliers/Bulls [Game 4] instead. Most NBA fans would probably agree that the Cavaliers/Bulls series doesn’t necessarily seem as competitive on paper as Lakers/Thunder does. So what was the decision making there? Chicago is a big market, much bigger market than Oklahoma City – but L.A. is a bigger market than Cleveland.

White: There are a lot of different nuances that go into the schedule. It wasn’t necessarily that we decided not to put the Lakers/Oklahoma City on ABC as opposed to the other games, it was just what the schedule could bear. There are a lot of things that go into decision making in terms of laying out the schedule, a lot of different factors. Things like building availability … things like the NHL playoffs, things like concerts or rodeos or other events which happen inside arenas. So a lot of times, you’re dealing with building availability.

SMW: Was that the case with Oklahoma City? I don’t think the Ford Center has that many events going on right now.

White: We’d have to go back and probably talk to the league to find out what happened. But there are also things that come into play in terms of the number of days off between games, and things of that nature, and making sure that certain series sync up with each other – for instance, the winner of the Oklahoma City/Lakers series sometimes has to be paired up on the same day as the teams that they could potentially be playing in the next series. There’s all these different factors that come into play as you lay out the schedule, to make sure you get teams on track so they’re able to play each other in the next round.

SMW: So ABC will definitely be airing just nine playoff games before the [NBA] Finals this year. And a lot of NBA fans, the biggest problem they’ve had with ABC’s coverage since the beginning is the lack of playoff games – especially compared to NBC, which aired upwards of 20 or 30 games, even six on one weekend. So has there ever been any thought given to maybe, on a given weekend on ABC, a doubleheader of playoff games on Saturday and then a doubleheader on Sunday, or is there going to continue to be a movement towards more games on ESPN?

White: I guess what I would say to that is, ESPN has proven to be a very viable platform. We’re in just about 100 million homes. So the distribution is very comparable to that of ABC. And a lot of times, we really look at the two networks as interchangeable. While ABC does enjoy a slightly higher distribution than ESPN, it’s not by much. I’ve actually never heard that complaint before, or seen that complaint before, that there are more games on ESPN as opposed to ABC. Typically, viewers follow the games wherever they are. The way we kind of look at it is that the viewers will also be switching over to ESPN to follow the games. In terms of moving more games to ABC, we analyze each season on a season-by-season basis. So next year, if we see something in terms of the way we schedule the playoffs, or if we want to rethink things, that option is always open for us. But we really do believe that ESPN is just as viable a platform as ABC, and we believe that the fans and viewers out there that want to watch NBA basketball are going to turn to ESPN to watch as well.

SMW: To play Devil’s advocate, let’s keep in mind that the ratings for the NBA Playoffs have not necessarily been able to get back to the point they were in the last year of the previous contract in 2001-02. Last year was really only the first year that the Conference Finals were able to get ratings kind of similar to that year. So it does seem as if the fewer games on broadcast TV – which is still the largest platform, even though it’s obviously shrinking – it does seem as if that’s having at least a bit of an effect on the ratings.

White: Well, you’re not really comparing apples to apples. The world that we live in today, from a media consumption standpoint, is a lot different than it was back in ’01 and ’02, and any time even before that. There’s a lot of other things out there, in the form of media entertainment, that prior to the 2002-03 season other networks didn’t have to compete against. The Internet, now, is very pervasive. You can watch live streaming of events on the Internet. There’s also a lot of other entertainment forms on the Internet that you’re competing against. So it’s not quite apples-to-apples. There’s a lot more competition. There’s more cable channels, there’s more HD channels. Those things didn’t exist in the early 2000s.

SMW: Speaking of competition, actually [on Friday], I posted an item about the Stanley Cup Playoff schedule. And this is the second straight year that NBC is going to be airing possibly two Stanley Cup [Final] games directly opposite the NBA Finals on ABC. How does that kind of competition, directly from another major sport affect what you guys are doing?

White: It really doesn’t. We deal with that on a daily basis here at ESPN. Whether it’s entertainment programming or other sports programming on other networks, we’re constantly facing competition on other networks. And we feel quite confident in the different sport properties that we have, and we believe that the NBA is one of those strong sport properties that compete against any sport property on any network. It’s a very strong product.

SMW: This year, ESPN is going to be airing the whole NBA Eastern Conference Finals. This is a departure from past years, and the first time since ’04 that you guys are doing that. Is that something you’re going to be doing from here on out, is it just a test run for this season to see if it would work?

White: We’re always trying different things out. We like the consistency that we’re able to bring on ESPN with having all of the Conference Final games on the network, and we’re confident that it’ll be successful and it’ll be easy for our viewers to find the games.