[fkabuckeyesrule]

A sad day for TBS. Today will be the last time the Braves are on TBS. (unless they appear on the natl tbs broadcast).

[TheRobb7]

Trivia questions;

What were the call-letters for TBS before Ted Turner took over?

Any takers?

[SamAdams76]

"Only" 716,000 households continue to watch the Atlanta Braves on TBS. A lot of local television stations would kill for that kind of audience.

Has anybody heard about "The Long Tail" which is basically the theory that the Internet and other mass media technologies has enabled even fringe hobbies to bring together people from around the world to form a marketable audience?

Basically what this means is that there may only be 75,000 people in the world who are huge fans of the alternative rock band "Built to Spill." Yet bring them all together on the Internet and they become a major source of revenue for the band who can sell them merchandise and special recordings.

Within the next 20 years, all television as we know it will migrate to the Web. However, there will be several million different stations that all cater to a specific sub-group. The "mass audience" is going away and will fragment into millions and millions of sub-groups. (Of course, a particular individual may subscribe to several "micro-channels that cater to his/her specific tastes).

[RetiredArmy]

I saw my first big league game in old Atlanta Stadium back in 1966 when the Braves came to Atlanta. The Giants and Braves played a day-night double header. I saw Willie Mays hit a dinger, Hank Aaron go deep, Joe Torre was the Braves catcher, Gaylord Perry pitched for the Giants in one game and Tony Colonger (spell?) threw for the Braves. The Braves 2d string catcher, Gene Oliver hit 3 dingers in game two. It was a full house and a great day at the park. I got to see Sandy Koufax, Phil Niekro, Roberto Clemente, Bob Gibson, Larry Dierker, Jimmy Wynn, and Rusty Staub of the Astros, and tons of other greats over there. The south did not have baseball till the Braves came in. Houston to the west, Cincinnati north of us or Baltimore were the nearest teams. I grew up a Mickey Mantle fan. I have saw hundred upon hundreds of games on TBS. The Braves were a really bad team in the 1970s and part of the 1980s. But, they were the first Western Div. champs when the league went into the division set up from the one league standings. The Mets and Seaver went to the series after beating the Braves in the first NL play offs of the East and West. How Atlanta first got in the west was a real mystery. TBS brought baseball into homes around the country during the week when ESPN was not around. You only had the Saturday Game of the Week back in those days.

[MikeD]

The real decline in viewership came when TBS stopped carrying the full schedule — the article says they dropped down to 90 games a year, down from 150+ “back in the day.” Fans tuned out because they couldn’t catch *every* game.

Oh, and SA76, I love your tagline. Keep Yourself Alive!