We can sing and dance a little, and we have a lot of small breweries.
CBS’s “The Early Show” (7 a.m., KCNC-Channel 4) comes to town Friday and sets up a mobile studio in Civic Center.
It’s part of the show’s “Great American Vacation” tour, hosted by weatherman Dave Price. Price is being replaced in NYC for the day by Channel 4’s Ed Greene.
The show’s producers have promised two minutes of airtime for the Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau to pinpoint what it is that makes Denver Denver.
Two catches: First, the show goes live at 5 a.m. Denver time. And second, whatever the bureau chooses to highlight must be transportable to Civic Center.
My suggestion to the bureau’s mouthpiece, Rich Grant, involved live interviews with Civic Center campers. He didn’t like that idea. Instead, our Big Moment will highlight the city’s reputation as the “Napa Valley of Beer.” We are, after all, home to a half-dozen breweries and the Great American Beer Festival.
So Charlie Papazian, president of the Brewers Association, will take to the airwaves with ample knowledge and samples from
Coors, Wynkoop and Flying Dog. Beer for breakfast.
Oddly, Mayor Hick, who never met a microphone he couldn’t speak into at length and whose restaurant empire was built on a brewpub, begged off being part of the sunrise service.
Other attractions will be highlighted, too, but it’s the bureau’s hope that just plain citizens will turn out to be part of the fun. Wave like there’s no tomorrow.
Radio ads fall
The Internet, already taking chunks out of newspaper circulation and television viewing, getting after the radio industry too.
The Radio Advertising Bureau reported that local ad revenue fell 4 percent from April 2005 to April 2006 and that national ad sales were down 7 percent in the same period.
Some analysts are predicting radio advertising revenue will be off this year and will be down 1.5 percent in 2007.
Around the dial
Early returns from the FIFA World Cup show ABC earned a 7 share, three times what the finals drew in 2002. An estimated 12 million viewers watched at least some of the France-Italy match Sunday. … Coverage of the Tour de France continues on OLN at 10 a.m. today and Saturday, and at 6:30 a.m. Friday and Sunday. … More World Cup, but this time it’s women’s softball, pitting Great Britain and the U.S. (5:30 tonight, ESPN). … DirectTV jacking up its major-league baseball coverage in high definition. The Rockies take on St. Louis on July 24 and 25, two of 17 Rox games in HD on FSN Rocky Mountain. … Quotable: “I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8 to educate America. They couldn’t educate America if they started at 6:30.” Groucho Marx
Dick Kreck’s column appears Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He may be reached at 303-820-1456 or dkreck
