By Lisa de Moraes

Tuesday, November 6, 2001; Page C01

The serious-minded men of Fox apparently did not appreciate the joke Sunday night when Emmy awards host Ellen DeGeneres kidded that she'd keep her CBS audience posted on the score of World Series Game 7, being broadcast over on the Fox network.

After hearing DeGeneres' opening monologue from Hollywood, Fox made a quick decision to slap the names of Emmy winners on top of its coverage of the game as payback.

And when Fox revealed the winners to Game 7's TV audience of nearly 40 million nationwide -- the biggest baseball crowd in a decade -- as the awards were being announced, it scooped the actual Emmy telecast in Mountain and Pacific time zones, where the ceremony aired on a tape-delayed basis. Those two zones account for more than 20 percent of the American viewing public.

"It was a pretty no-class thing to do," CBS Executive Vice President Gil Schwartz told the Associated Press. "This is an event that celebrates all of television. To attempt to play the role of national party pooper is sort of disappointing."

Fox Sports Television Group Chairman and CEO David Hill told The TV Column that he made the decision to post winners during Series play after learning that CBS "put up baseball scores, or said they were going to put up baseball scores." The call was "just more kind of like a knee-jerk reaction," he said.

Actually, CBS did not "post" baseball scores during its Emmycast, nor did DeGeneres say it would. What she did, during her opening monologue, is thank viewers who had chosen the twice-postponed Emmy ceremony over Game 7 of the World Series, which was airing at the same time in the Eastern and Central time zones on Fox. "This is the place to be," joshed the comic, who promised to keep her audience updated on the baseball scores. "I don't think they're gonna break in and let you know who just won for best supporting actress," she added.

In fact, that is exactly what Fox went and did, even though DeGeneres was clearly jesting and, as it turned out, mentioned the score only once during the three-hour trophy broadcast.

Hill's comment makes it obvious that he didn't actually see the Emmycast. He's not saying where he got his information, only that the decision to post Emmy wins was his.

CBS execs were officially taking the high road yesterday but privately wondering whether any of the Fox executives attending the Emmy show at the Shubert Theatre in Century City had stepped out and called Hill after DeGeneres' comments.

No way of telling exactly what impact the bean-spilling had on viewership for the 53rd annual Primetime Emmy Awards. Nationwide, the broadcast nabbed only about 17 million viewers -- the second-least watched Emmy broadcast in more than 20 years.

Of course, it was CBS's decision to reschedule the long-delayed Emmy show during the fiercely competitive November sweeps and possibly against a World Series game.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001

Answers

circenses et circenses....
bring yer own bread

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001

Just another question for Trivial Pursuit.

"Who was that stupid man from FOX...?"

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001