Broadcast sports: No changes likely for local announcers

The Timberwolves and Wild broadcast departments will be busy in the coming weeks.

The Wolves television team of Tom Hanneman and Jim Petersen, and radio analyst Billy McKinney had their contracts expire at the end of the season. That leaves only radio play-by-play voice Alan Horton under contract.

That's one better than the Wild. Television announcers Dan Terhaar and Mike Greenlay, and radio guys Bob Kurtz and Tom Reid all need new contracts for 2008-2009.

Don't expect major changes.

Bill Robertson, Wild vice president of communications and broadcasting, expressed satisfaction with his team's announcers, and said internal evaluations are being done. The Wild plans to meet with each broadcaster during the next two weeks.

Wolves vice president of communications Ted Johnson said the NBA team is having discussions with Hanneman, Petersen and McKinney. "Our intent is to keep all three of them," Johnson said. "We're really happy with what they've been able to do to develop our broadcasts."

The Wild and Wolves aren't the only teams making decisions about their on-air talent. Officials at Learfield-run Gopher Sports Properties have not made it official whether football announcers Dave Lee, Dave Mona and Darrell Thompson will return. Learfield general manager Greg Gerlach said he still needs to meet with the announcers before making a final decision, but indications are they will be back.

The ratings through the opening two rounds of the NBA playoffs have improved from a year ago. But that doesn't mean the Twin Cities has embraced a league that, from a television standpoint, it usually ignores.

First the positive news: ABC's figures were up 22 percent locally from a 1.5 in 2007 to a 1.8; ESPN had a 17 percent gain from 1.0 to a 1.2; and TNT went from a 0.9 rating to a 1.1.

Now the reality: The ratings on all three networks placed the Twin Cities next to last among the 56 metered markets in the United States.

Nationally, ABC's ratings for the playoffs were up 28 percent to a 3.7, ESPN was up 27 percent (2.8) and TNT had a 14 percent growth (2.4).

The local ratings for the NHL playoffs also have risen but won't get anyone too excited. NBC's coverage has produced a 2.0 rating and Versus has a 0.7; the former figure is up 43 percent from a 1.4 and the latter has increased 40 percent from a 0.5.

By the way, Versus (Games 1-2) and NBC (Games 3-7) have what could be a marquee matchup in the Stanley Cup Finals between two U.S. teams, Pittsburgh and Detroit, that feature several stars. The past two finals have each had a Canadian-based team, with Carolina playing Edmonton in 2006, and Anaheim facing Ottawa last season.

Not exactly a good way to get ratings.

An odd situation occurred Sunday when the Milwaukee Brewers-Boston Red Sox game, part of TBS' new national baseball package, was blacked out on Comcast in the Twin Cities.

So what happened? Comcast officials said they were "contractually obligated to black out the game" because the cable system also serves several towns in western Wisconsin and under TBS' deal, the Brewers' local television rights holder had to be protected in those markets.

It's hard to know who should get the blame in this situation but it is ridiculous that a game involving two out-of-state teams gets blacked out in Minneapolis-St. Paul. "We are looking at options that would allow us to limit the blackout area for future broadcasts," Comcast spokeswoman Mary Beth Schubert said.

• FSN North will transition to round-the-clock HD programming next year. Randy Freer, president of FSN Networks, said that all 16 regional sports networks owned and operated by Fox will be making the move to full time HD in the first quarter of next year.

Judd Zulgad • jzulgad@startribune.com