• by Paul Gough , March 12, 2003

At least some of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship games will be moved from broadcast to cable if war breaks out in the Middle East, and CBS head Leslie Moonves said the network would offer make-goods to advertisers if the numbers aren’t similar to broadcast.

Speaking to the Media Daily News after his presentation Wednesday morning to the World Congress of Sports in New York City, Moonves said the network’s sister units at Viacom – primarily TNN but also Nick at Nite – would televise some of the games if war breaks out. It’s generally assumed that the major broadcast networks would have 24-hour coverage of the opening days of a war, forgoing regular programming and advertising for at least the first few days. If the war begins during the NCAA’s tournament, CBS will run news coverage on the broadcast network and turf games to cable.

General-interest channel TNN, available in 85 million homes nationwide, would be the primary spot for any games bumped by war coverage. But Moonves confirmed that other Viacom properties, including Nick at Nite, could also factor into the plans. “We’re looking at other possibilities. It’s a case-by-case basis,” Moonves said. CBS and NCAA executives talk several times a day about the prospects, and Moonves said a plan has been in place at CBS Sports since last weekend. It obviously isn’t clear how many games would be moved from CBS, as it depends on the timing of a possible war and how many games are being televised. As many as four regional games could be carried at the same time on the network and homes would have to be found for them.

The NCAA tournaments are big business to CBS, which recently spent millions for the 11-year exclusive marketing rights on every platform. Advertisers also spent millions on spots during the games, particularly the Final Four and championship, and would likely be concerned about reach and ratings. Moonves said CBS would offer make-goods if the ratings don’t match what advertisers expected from the broadcast games. “The idea is to get as close to the numbers on CBS and then you don’t have an advertising problem,” Moonves said. He said he felt confident that it would be OK.

The first Persian Gulf War began with several days of wall-to-wall coverage in mid-January 1991 on the broadcast networks, followed by updates as required. Extended coverage followed the beginning of a ground offensive several weeks later but the war ended long before the NCAA tournaments began. The networks dropped their regularly scheduled programming in the days following the 9/11 attacks; baseball and football halted play for several days. As recently as a month ago, the networks were forced to decide between breaking news and sporting events when the space shuttle Columbia crashed in Texas. CBS had planned to cover a college basketball game and the Bob Hope Desert Classic golf tournament. “A quick decision had to be made that day,” Moonves recalled. CBS decided to cancel coverage of the basketball game in favor of continual coverage of the crash and recovery efforts. CBS went to golf about an hour later than it planned after it determined that no more news was going to be made that day.

“It’s a very tough call. It’s a question we do lose sleep over as the NCAA is very important to what we do,” Moonves said.