RE: Pats vs. Raiders - sports TV broadcasting history... 'Heidi Bowl'

["Hakim Madjid" <HMadjid@mindspring.com>]

NBC which had national broacast rights to what was then the AFL (American
Football League) was broadcasting a Raiders vs. Jets game (played @ Oakland)
[late afternoon game]. Both teams were
7-2 at the time, thus both were contending for the post season and a
possible appearance in
Superbowl III. The game was a typical AFL-style shootout, with the Jet's Joe
Namath passing
for 381 yards and one touchdown, and Oakland's QB Dayrle LaMonica (311 yards
4 TD's).

With 1:05 to play in the 4th quarter the Jets kicked a field goal to break a
29-29 tie. When the
Raiders got the ball back, LaMonica threw a twenty yard pass completion. At
this point, Dick Cline
who was in charge at NBCs network control room because it was approaching
6:59 and NBC had scheduled Heidi to run at 7pm, pulled the network feed of
the game from afiliates in the East
and Midwest (Eastern and Central time zones), NBC went to a commerical and
then their scheduled
7pm made-for-TV-Heidi movie.

What viewers missed due to NBC running Heidi, but 43 seconds to go in the
Raiders - Jets contest
was Dayrle LaMonica's 43 yard touchdown pass, to take the lead for good, and
Oakland recovering a
loose ball on the ensuing kickoff, and returning that for yet another
touchdown.

So great was the volume of calls from irate football fans to NBC's
Rockefeller Center
Headquarters, that several of the phone exchanges in that area of Manhattan
went down.
Juilan Goodman, NBC's president at the time, issued a public apology.
Huntley and Brinkley ran the final minute of the game on their nightly
newscast, the next day.

As for Cline he never got reprimanded for his deed, because he was simply
going-by-the-book,
as was spelled out at a meeting with his superiors earlier that week. Cline
nowadays is an
award-winning TV sports producer/director.

As for the Jets and Radiers, the met again on December 29th, 1968 in the AFL
championship,
which the Jets won, 27-23. Then the Jets went on to the Superbowl and upset
the heavily
favored Baltimore Colts, 16-7.

As for Pro football TV broadcasts, never again would any network cut away
from a game like that.
It became standard practice, (this satisfies everyone) to slide the start of
the following program.

73, de Hakim (N1ZFF)



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
[mailto:owner-boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org]On Behalf Of Cooper
Fox
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 7:45 AM
To: Hakim Madjid; bri@bostonradio.org
Subject: Re: Pats vs. Raiders - sports TV broadcasting history... 'Heidi
Bowl'



What happened nov 17th in 68?  Was it robert kennedy?



> I was actually watching that game nearly 3 and a
> half decades ago, when NBC
> cut away.
>
> Due to the outcry the next day Huntley and Brinkley
> had to broadcast the
> final minute of the game
> on their newscast the next day.
>
> 73, de Hakim (N1ZFF)
>
>


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