For me, Sunday was a tremendous day of TV watching.
The Masters golf tournament is the only “show” I can watch for five hours and not get bored or irritated.
The reason it is such a great broadcast — even if it doesn’t always offer a hair-raising finish — is that the guys who run Augusta National golf course have steadfastly held onto the reins of the programming.
As far as I know, it’s the only event where the people staging it have been able to keep the TV networks from dictating how things will go.
For example, the Masters limits coverage of the four-day event to 17 total hours — four hours on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and five on Sunday, closing day.
In a story posted on Thursday, USA Today said:
“Augusta National is protective of its tournament. For years, there were no cameras on the front side (first nine holes) of Augusta. The first nine was like the dark side of the moon — only a few had seen it. Masters officials had been worried that too much television coverage would cut down on crowds. Even as recently as 2001, when Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were in the final Sunday group, CBS would come on air at 4 p.m. on Sunday to only show the second nine.”
But the absolute best thing about the Masters coverage — hands down — is that Augusta National limits commercials to four minutes per hour.
Four minutes an hour!
That’s unbelievable in these days of three-and-a-half-hour baseball games and NFL games of at least equal length. Those games are interminable, and it’s mostly because of the glut of commercials. It’s commonplace on NFL games to have a fairly long commercial break after a touchdown or field goal, then the ensuing kickoff and then another extended commercial break.
It’s insufferable…I like the Chiefs, but there’s no way I can watch an entire game any more. In fact, as I’ve weaned myself away — or, I should say, as TV has driven me away — I find myself watching less and less of Chiefs games. Now, it’s down to maybe part of the fourth quarter, if the game is interesting.
In addition as much as I like golf (second to women’s college basketball, in my book), I can’t watch the Golf Channel’s coverage of tournaments, either.
I swear, the Golf Channel has just about as much commercial time as it does actual golf coverage. If the FCC cared about the viewers, it would run the Golf Channel right off the air. It’s a complete waste of time…And when the Golf Channel is not airing commercials or precious minutes of actual play, analysts like the insipid Brandel Chamblee yammer about obscure points of the game and dissect golf swings to the point of nausea.
So, what a relief and pleasure it was to watch five hours of coverage (actually I got in on it a little late because I had lunch-clean-up duty) with only 20 minutes of commercials. It was a challenge to get to the kitchen and back with a snack and not miss seeing an important shot…Now that’s compelling coverage.
Moreover, the commercials that do run are not the grating, banal kind that you see on every other show. The Masters limits the marketing to select “corporate partners.” The partners this year were IBM, AT&T and Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz. Those three companies used their limited time to get their messages across quickly and efficiently.
In addition to minimal commercials, Sunday’s coverage offered an irresistible story line: A hard-fought battle between the free-swinging, likable Bubba Watson, the 2012 Masters champion, and 20-year-old Jordan Spieth, a fresh-faced, fiery Texan who was competing in his first Masters.
In the end, Bubba’s experience and ability to hit 360-yard drives proved to be the difference, with Bubba winning by three strokes.
But it was a hell of a show, from start to finish.
So, I say, thank you, you old sticklers who run Augusta National…Thank you for keeping the network executives’ grubby hands from getting a stranglehold on one of the greatest sporting events in the world.
Long live Augusta National and long live a commercial-limited Masters!
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
So, Fitz–did you approve of kctv5 refusing to cut into the Masters coverage to report the killing of three people at the Jewish Community Center? The event happened at 1:15. No mention. Shameful? Not even a crawler, just the crawler and map about storms in the area.
Fore!
You’re absolutely right about the dearth of coverage, Tracy, but they did have a crawler a couple of times during the five-hour period. Not nearly frequently enough, and no details whatsoever.
The crawler at the time I was watching was directing people to channel 62 for the live police press conference at 5.
I have no loyalty to any local news station so if there was breaking news locally I would have found a station covering it.
Members of the Jewish community are outraged, and properly so, that none of the local TV stations broke into their regular program to discuss the murders. They watched it first on CNN. As usual, KMBC seemed to be the worst and KSHB (with former reporters like Karen Dillon) seemed to be considered the best.
One Jewish friend noted the killer’s claim that Jews controlled the media and then pointed to the irony that not one KC TV station cared enough to disrupt their schedule to cover the murders.
Another irony is that none of this idiot’s victims were Jewish. Two were Methodists from Church of the Resurrection and the third apparently was Catholic. My condolences and prayers for the victims and those in the Jewish community, who have once again been attacked by a madman.
We have become a society of bread and circuses, distracted while our society becomes ever sicker.
Fitz,
Augusta National and CBS have three exclusive sponsors (AT&T, IBM and Mercedes). They have an agreement for less ads spots at a much higher rate. Condolences to the shooting victims, their friends and families.
I’m with Jim on this topic. The commercials have overrun the sporting events to the point that you are now watching a paid advertisement with a few sports breaks. It’s even worse on prime time shows. I’ve noticed that when my wife watches a t.v. series episode on Netfix, an hour long program only has about 27 min. of run time without the advertisements. What’s worse is they crank the volume on the commercials to the point of brainwashing if you don’t adjust the volume (as we do at my house) to a manageable level.
As for the breaking news interruptions, unless people are in danger I could care less. I’m not positive about this (wasn’t watching), but I think by the time the news got a hold on this story Sunday, there was no longer a “At-Large” situation. I can wait until six-o-clock to here all that crap on the news. I can also skip the news like I did this Sunday! I didn’t know anything about it until Monday morning. So unlike everyone who was glued to their set, my day wasn’t ruined by that situation and thanks to “the guys who run Augusta National golf course” Jim was able to enjoy a nearly uninterrupted final round of golf.
-end rant.
As far as rants go, that’s a good one, Jason!