NFL Week #10: Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN and NFLN: Announcers, notes and regional coverage detailed

WEEK 10

• This weekend, six NFL teams have byes: Denver, Houston, Jacksonville, New England, Philadelphia, Washington. Simple arithmetic means that there are 13 NFL games this weekend

• On the sideline front for Fox: Pam Oliver, the daughter of an Air Force man, is with the #2 team in New Orleans; Lindsay Czarniak, the daughter of Chet a longtime newspaper editor and executive, will be at Met Life Stadium for the Jets-Giants backyard brawl. Temps in NJ in the mid 50s. Erin Andrews bundles up in Green Bay. Did you know (or care) that Erin is married to ex-NHLer Jarret Stoll. He’s 37 and she’s 41. Enough gossip!

• Keeping track of the travels of the CBS sideliners. Evan Washburn goes to Chicago for Lions-Bears. Evan has no play-by-play aspirations. He hopes to grow his career in the studio. The former placekicker and Arena Leaguer, Jay Feely is with the blessed Kevin Harlan and Rich Gannon. Amanda Balionis has Buffalo at Cleveland. Known for her golf expertise and given the recent talent changes at CBS, there’s an Amanda watch. Will she be assigned a hole? First teamer, the implacable Tracy Wolfson has Kansas City at Tennessee

• Ages: Oldest network play-by-players: Dick Stockton, 76; Al Michaels, 74 and Greg Gumbel, 73

• Fox says its NFL play-by-play coverage to date has averaged 18,656,000 viewers, up 8% over last season

• Through nine weeks of NFL play, CBS’ season-to-date viewership is its best in three years, and is up 6% with 16.640,000 viewers compared to last year’s 15.721 million. You might ask why CBS draws some two million fewer viewers. NFC markets are in larger population bases. Think Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, Dallas and Detroit. They’re bigger than Cleveland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh. The Rams have a history in the second biggest market, Los Angeles. The Chargers were traditionally in San Diego and will at best be #2 in Southern California to the Rams. It’s why NFC rights are more valuable than AFC rights. 

• The Fox baseball folks are back in place as you can see.

Jake Baskin has a profile of Joe Tessitore just below the schedule.

All times Eastern

Thursday, November 07, 2019

Los Angeles Chargers at Oakland Raiders 8:20p FOX/NFLN/Amazon Prime

Joe Buck, Troy Aikman on Fox

Hannah Storm, Andrew Kremer on Amazon Prime

100% of USA – NFL Network reaches 63 million homes; As of June, Amazon Prime had 105 million subscribers

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Detroit Lions at Chicago Bears 1:00p CBS

Ian Eagle, Dan Fouts

19% of the USA, Midwest, Upper Midwest plus patches around the Mid-Atlantic and the Carolinas. Think NFC North: Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Minneapolis, Charlotte, Norfolk, Philadelphia

Baltimore Ravens at Cincinnati Bengals  1:00p CBS

Kevin Harlan, Rich Gannon

9% of the USA, Baltimore across parts of the Mid-Atlantic, Pennsylvania, Southern Ohio and Kentucky. Baltimore, Washington, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville

Buffalo Bills at Cleveland Browns  1:00p CBS

Andrew Catalon, James Lofton

5% of the USA, Upstate New York into Eastern Ohio and Vermont, plus Oklahoma City, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Cleveland and Burlington, Vt.

Atlanta Falcons at New Orleans Saints  1:00p FOX

Kevin Burkhardt, Charles Davis

67% of the USA. Largest distribution in the 1 o’clock window. Pretty much everywhere except the Northeast corridor, much of Florida, Arizona and Oklahoma. Tulsa and Oklahoma City get Arizona game due to a gentleman named Kyler Murray.

New York Giants at New York Jets  1:00p FOX

Kenny Albert, Ronde Barber

23% of the USA. This inner city battle will be distributed through the Northeast Corridor and South Florida, jokingly dubbed, “The Sixth borough” due to all the transplanted  New Yorkers. Markets:  New York, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, Buffalo, Miami, West Palm Beach

Arizona Cardinals at Tampa Bay Buccaneers  1:00p FOX

Thom Brennaman, Chris Spielman

7% of the USA, Much of Florida, Arizona and Oklahoma, some 11 markets; Tampa, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Tulsa

Kansas City Chiefs at Tennessee Titans 1:00p CBS

Jim Nantz, Tony Romo (the #1 team will be on this)

52% of the USA, This telecast dominates most everything west of the Mississippi. It also extends through parts of the Carolinas and Northern Florida: Complete states of Texas, California, Washington, Oregon and Colorado

Carolina Panthers at Green Bay Packers  4:00p FOX

Joe Buck, Troy Aikman

70% of USA, except geography that gets Rams-Steelers below

Miami Dolphins at Indianapolis Colts   4:05p CBS

Greg Gumbel, Trent Green

15% of  the USA South Florida, State of Indiana plus a few other clusters that dot the map: Miami, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Chattanooga, New Orleans and a biggie, New York City. The reason that the Big Apple is getting this one is CBS can’t run in the market during the 1 o’clock window when Fox has the Jets vs. Giants. So the only game that CBS has available in the 4p window is this one, Miami-Indy

Los Angeles Rams at Pittsburgh Steelers  4:25p FOX

Chris Myers, Daryl Johnston

29% of USA, virtually all of the West Coast, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and all of Ohio. Markets: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle (Editor’s note: Myers is very good!)

Minnesota Vikings at Dallas Cowboys 8:20p NBC

Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth

100% of USA

Monday, November 11, 2019

Seattle Seahawks at San Francisco 49ers  8:15p ESPN

Joe Tessitore, Booger McFarland

100% coverage of USA, ESPN is in some 84 million homes  (Editor’s observation: Suits and ties have gone the way of Pony Express. Yet Tessitore dresses to kill. I’d bet he buys bespoked suits. I’m no haberdasher but Joe’s suits aren’t off the rack. Still, I can’t help but note how the sleeves at his shoulders fall perfectly down his arms without a hint of a wrinkle. That requires lots of work by an old-school tailor. Look good, feel good, maybe broadcast good!)

Joe Tessitore:

Joe Tessitore has the call of this week’s Monday Night Football matchup between the Seahawks and 49ers. Tessitore is in his second year as the voice of Monday Night Football, working alongside two-time Super Bowl champion Booger McFarland, who moved from the sideline to the booth this season following Jason Witten’s return to the Cowboys’ playing field.

Tessitore, 48, graduated from Boston College in 1993, a classmate of Jon Sciambi and Bob Wischusen. He worked in local television as a sports anchor in his home market of Albany, New York as well as Dallas before joining the CBS affiliate in Hartford, Connecticut in 1995, soon becoming its lead anchor.

With ESPN’s Bristol headquarters nearby, the Worldwide Leader started keeping tabs on Tessitore, and he got his first work with ESPN in 2002 as a boxing blow-by-blow announcer. He has been the network’s lead boxing announcer ever since, and was the voice for EA Sports’ Fight Night video game series. He quickly was assigned other roles within the network, including hosting Belmont Stakes and Breeders Cup coverage, calling play-by play for college basketball, and dabbling in hosting reality shows, namely ABC’s short-lived revival of Battle of the Network Stars and its miniature golf competition, Holey Moley.

Tessitore started doing college football for ESPN at the very beginning of his tenure, and developed a following among fans for the tendency of games he was calling to produce exciting moments, known as the “Tess Effect”. He became ESPN’s lead Saturday night announcer in 2016, and held that role for two seasons before taking the Monday Night Football job, switching places with Sean McDonough.