Last year's TV schedule was announced on September 9, 2008 with a minor change announced a month later. We were quite a bit past that date so I emailed KJZZ to find out when it was going to be released. Here's the email conversation that I had with them,
BBJ: Has the schedule been released for what games will be on KJZZ and what games will be on FSN?
KJZZ: There will be no games on our station this year. All games will be on FSN Utah.
So, I in turn passed that along to you a few days ago. Having not heard anything back, I could only speculate as to why there would be no Jazz games on KJZZ. We had some comments about what could have happened, but we really didn't have any real reason.
Then, in Siler's blog about the Jazz/Real Madrid game, he mentions this,
Jazz president Randy Rigby also disputed a blog report that KJZZ will not be televising any Jazz games this season. Rigby said the final decision has not been made and that he has some issues to address on the subject once he gets back to Utah. If nothing else, he's been quizzed on the matter in three different countries in the past week.
I hadn't heard back from anyone on this, so I didn't know what to think. This seemed to be the exact opposite of what KJZZ had told me.
Today, I got an email from Jeremy Castro, the VP of Broadcasting and Operations clarifying some things for us. He stated that the information I was told was inaccurate. Here's his initial email,
First and foremost the reason we have yet to release a broadcast schedule to the public is because it has yet to be finalized. Although we have been in deep discussion regarding the distribution of the games it has yet to be determined where the games will be distributed. Rest assured that it is our top priority to service the fans and allow them access to our broadcasts. Once we do have a final decision we will release that information to the public.
Let me address some of the other information in the comment stream linked to your blog.
1) We have moved from KJZZ to the ESA, but it has nothing to do with our game production. This was to help create better synergy between all of our broadcast entities and the Utah Jazz. In addition this gives us numerous operation efficiencies. We are building a production facility at the ESA which will allow us to do many productions out of our facility, including Jazz Pre and Post game shows and other live productions.
2) Whether we broadcast the games on KJZZ or FSN the cost of production is the same.
So from Rigby's comment and Jeremy's, it looks like they're still in negotiations with FSN on what games they will be carrying and that's why it has taken so long to announce the TV schedule.
I asked him about the comment from the original post concerning the PR teacher talking to the Jazz media guy about FSN making them an offer they couldn't refuse, he replied that unless it comes from the Jazz, "anything outside [the Jazz organization] is hearsay and speculation."
I still couldn't find out why the Jazz aren't carrying any pre-season games other than, "The move to the ESA did not impact our decision to not broadcast pre-season games."
So finally, when can we expect the Jazz TV schedule to be released? Jeremy wrote,
Without sounding evasive we will release the schedule as soon as we have a deal done. It will be soon, which I know is a relative term.
KJZZ carried 16 Jazz games last year. How many will they have this year? Looks like we'll know "soon."