Television
Once again, except for the play-in game, which was telecast on ESPN, CBS and CBS College Sports Network served as broadcasters on television for the tournament. The only change from past years at the Final Four was that Jim Nantz worked with Clark Kellogg in the color commentary position instead of Billy Packer, who left CBS in July 2008.
- Studio: Greg Gumbel, Greg Anthony and Seth Davis
- Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and Tracy Wolfson (she was only used as sideline reporter for the Final Four and NCAA Championship game) - 1st & 2nd Round at Greensboro, NC; South Regional at Memphis, TN; Final Four at Detroit, MI
- Dick Enberg/Carter Blackburn and Jay Bilas - Blackburn Thursday afternoon; Enberg Thursday night, second round at Philadelphia, PA; West Regional at Glendale, AZ
- Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery - 1st & 2nd Round at Dayton, OH; East Regional at Boston, MA
- Gus Johnson and Len Elmore - 1st & 2nd Round at Minneapolis, MN; Midwest Regional at Indianapolis, IN
- Kevin Harlan and Dan Bonner - 1st & 2nd Round at Portland, OR
- Ian Eagle and Jim Spanarkel - 1st & 2nd Round at Miami, FL
- Craig Bolerjack and Bob Wenzel - 1st & 2nd Round at Boise, ID
- Tim Brando and Mike Gminski - 1st & 2nd Round at Kansas City, MO
For the play-in game in Dayton, ESPN had Brent Musburger, Steve Lavin and Erin Andrews working as the announcers.
Some CBS affiliates put additional game broadcasts on digital subchannels, or, as in the following two instances, on other stations:
- WOIO and WUAB (Raycom Media duopoly): On March 20, WOIO aired Ohio State vs. Siena, while Cleveland State vs. Wake Forest was on WUAB at the same time. The Cleveland area has a substantial number of OSU alumni, and Mansfield, although part of the Cleveland market, is equidistant to both Columbus and Cleveland.
- KOTV and KQCW (Griffin Media duopoly): Also on March 20, KOTV aired Oklahoma State vs. Tennessee; at the same time, Kansas vs. North Dakota State was on KQCW. The reason for this simulcast is that part of the Tulsa market includes Coffeyville and other communities at the southern end of Kansas.
Read more about this topic: 2009 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, Media
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“The television screen, so unlike the movie screen, sharply reduced human beings, revealed them as small, trivial, flat, in two banal dimensions, drained of color. Wasn’t there something reassuring about it!—that human beings were in fact merely images of a kind registered in one another’s eyes and brains, phenomena composed of microscopic flickering dots like atoms. They were atoms—nothing more. A quick switch of the dial and they disappeared and who could lament the loss?”
—Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)
“There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials ... despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.”
—Peter Ustinov (b. 1921)