Midweek NCAA Update

We promised an update today, and it's chock full of NCAA tourney news...so here it is:

Local NCAA Plans: We have the schedule for Thursday's tournament games that will air on Local 12 WKRC-TV and Dayton's WHIO-TV 7. The schedule is a shared schedule, so both stations will air the same games, and all of them will be in HD.

Those games are:

12:20 p.m.: Butler-LSU
2:30 p.m. Northern Iowa-Purdue
7:10 p.m.: Michigan-Clemson
9:45 p.m.: Western KY-Illinois

Also, Local12.2 CW Cincinnati will air two afternoon games, but in Standard Definition, and those are:

12:30 p.m.: Texas A&M-BYU
2:45 p.m.: Maryland-California

And just announced as this is being posted is the Friday schedule, which we found through John Kiesewetter at the Enquirer. And the multiplexing will expand on Friday, to allow for both the Xavier and Louisville games to be shown in the Tri-State:

On WKRC, this schedule WILL be in HD:

12:30: Utah State-Marquette
2:50 p.m.: Dayton-West Virginia
7:25 p.m.: Xavier-Portland State
9:30 p.m.: Ohio State-Siena

Ch 12.2 will air three games Friday, BUT these are NOT High-Definition broadcasts:

12:25 p.m.: Tennessee-Oklahoma
2:35 p.m. Temple-Arizona State
7:10 p.m. Louisville-Morehead State

CBS' pregame shows will start at 12 noon and at 7pm. That is why Local12 News will be on CW Cincinnati on Thursday and Friday...we have also found out that Local12 News at 11 will ALSO be on CW Cincinnati Thursday night and Friday night, just because the games probably will run late and there will likely be postgame coverage. The news will also be moved on Thursday and Friday of NEXT week, too.

EDIT: And by the way, this will also bump all of CW Cincinnati's Friday night programming per John Kiesewetter. Everybody Hates Chris will air at 11:30. (Isn't it Everybody HATES Chris, Kiese?) Then it will be "The Game" and then "America's Next Top Model".

CBS College Sports Preview: Kiese also mentions an upcoming preview, which we knew of Insight's share of independently Tuesday night...but didn't know about TWC until just before we wrote the preview yesterday. (The Tri-State Media Watch HQ in Florence, KY uses Insight Cable, and has digital...)

Both Time Warner and Insight have announced a CBS College Sports TV preview to take place now through April 7, which is the day following the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

Insight will offer the channel at channel 530, with NCAA highlights on channel 501 (the latter will air through 4/30). Time Warner customers will find it on Channel 177.

B105 Inspires American Idol Performance: A hat tip to Kiese for this one, too.

When you watch tonight's American Idol, featuring Carrie Underwood and Randy Travis singing "I Told You So" (8pm, WXIX-TV 19/WRGT-TV 45), be sure to thank WUBE-FM 105.1 DJ Jesse Tack.

When Artista Records released Underwood's single of the song from her 2007 "Carnival Ride" CD, program director Travis Moon suggested that Tack try to combine it with Travis's version recorded in 1987. He did. Moon liked it so much he put it on B105 immediately, and it was a HUGE hit locally and now nationally.

So, Underwood and Travis will do the duet LIVE tonight...Tack said to Kiese: "When I put this together, my hope was that Carrie and Randy would hear this, and think what a good opportunity it would be to record it together.... I knew my version sounded good, but I didn't know if we would even play it. I certainly didn't know it would spread around the country. They must be getting a big response from other PDs (program directors), and seeing what's written on message boards."

We here at TSMW give massive props to Tack...he, after all, created the sensation, and now it's gone viral...who'da thunk it?

By the way, we know that the list of DTV transition dates has been released...we will post on that tonight, as soon as we've had time to digest it...