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for March Madness bid Other shorts: CBS to KGB: Get your head out of your ... Feb 2, 2010 TNT and CBS teaming for March Madness bid Like just about every other sporting event these days, March Madness may be headed for cable. CBS and TNT are said to be collaborating on a proposal to share coverage of the men's college basketball tournament if, as expected, the NCAA opts out of the deal it currently has with CBS. Under the plan, the broadcaster and the cable network would alternate years carrying the Final Four and split most of the other games, according to SportsBusiness Journal. The network carrying the Final Four would pay 60 percent of the rights fee and the other network would pay the remaining 40 percent for a deal that could last up to 14 years. The plan assumes the tournament being expanded from 65 to 96 teams, which the NCAA hinted at last year when rumors began that it would nix its current $6 billion deal. While Fox is also reportedly mulling an offer, it looks likely that the games will end up on cable one way or another, as ESPN, which airs the women's tournament, is also pursuing March Madness. Already many major events, such as the NBA conference finals, some of the Stanley Cup finals and the British Open, have migrated to cable over the past decade. CBS to KGB: Get your head out of your ... ManCrunch.com isn't the only company whose ad has been sacked by CBS. Yesterday KGB, another first-time advertiser, said the network had rejected its 30-second spot, which features two golfers with their heads quite literally shoved up their butts. Here's what happens: Two wives call KGB, a service that answers texters' questions for a small fee, after their husbands very cluelessly try to discuss global warming. "He's got his head up his ass," notes one of the KGB "agents" called to the scene. "Not the first time," replies his wife. The visual, though jarring, is more amusing than disgusting. CBS has not commented on why the ad was rejected, though the network that broadcast Janet Jackson's Super Bowl boober six years ago seems to be wary of any impropriety this year. It also rejected a gay dating site's ad in which two men make out and insisted that EA Sports change the tagline on a new game from "Go to hell." And Go Daddy, the online domain registry, had one of its ads rejected, though not one of the usual jiggly girls in barely there clothing ones. Instead, it's a spot in which a burly former football player tries to sell lingerie. KGB will still have two ads in the big name, though, as it submitted four to CBS for approval. Nielsen: Many Super Bowl viewers will do it at home This year’s Super Bowl is expected to draw 100 million viewers, and it appears most of them will be watching at home or a friend’s home. Forty-six percent of people plan to watch the game at home alone or with their immediate family, according to a new survey by The Nielsen Co. Another 31 percent plan to watch at home with friends and relatives, and 14 percent plan to watch at the home of a friend or relative. Seven percent aren’t sure where they’ll watch the game yet, leaving just 3 percent who say they’ll watch the game away from home at a bar or restaurant. Still, while most people will be watching the game from home, they don’t plan to spend any more on snacks than they did last year. The Nielsen survey found that just 5 percent plan to spend more on food and beverages for the Super Bowl this year, while 71 percent will spend about the same and 15 percent will spend less. Nine percent weren’t sure how much they will spend. Market research company IBISWorld is predicting that 43 percent of U.S. households will tune in to CBS for Sunday’s game, equaling 100 million total viewers. Programming notes: Oprah gets OWN show Oprah Winfrey will indeed have a show on her OWN cable network when it launches next January. It just won’t be a talk show. When Discovery Health Channel transforms into OWN, it will begin airing “Behind the Scenes: Oprah’s 25th Season,” a reality series about the final season of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” The program is really an end-around to ensure that Winfrey appears in some format on her new net; she is contractually prohibited from appearing in another talk show until her current show ends its syndication run in September 2011. Meanwhile, in other programming, actor Matthew Broderick has signed on to star in “Beach Lane,” a comedy pilot picked up by NBC. Broderick will play an author who’s hired to run a struggling newspaper in the Hamptons. And CBS has ordered a pilot for “Reagan’s Law,” about a family of police officers in New York. The network has also ordered a medical drama pilot from former “ER” producer John Wells.
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