ARE YOU READY FOR NFL OVERKILL?; CBS SPARES LITTLE EXPENSE GETTING BACK INTO THE GAME.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

An horrific horde of NFL hors d'oeuvres to chomp on, food for thought as to why the start of American professional football this Sunday hasn't been declared a national holiday - it's just a fluke that it fits into Labor Day weekend this year:

On a spin tour about a month ago before a group of media groupies in Pasadena, CBS Sports President Sean McManus calmly proclaimed: ``There is no project in the history of this company - and not just the history of CBS Sports, but the history of the CBS Corporation - that has ever been given more funding, more attention, more resources or more priority than the relaunching of the NFL on CBS.''

Prior to that, the most vital blip on CBS' radar was making sure Dick Van Dyke was locked into a ``Diagnosis Murder'' contract for as long as he's physically able to move laterally with a hypodermic syringe.

David Poltrack, CBS's executive vice president in charge of planning and research, has admitted something crazy: On network promos alone, CBS has used the equivalent of $150 million in advertising time just to remind everyone that the NFL is back on its network.

Sure, all movies today have huge advertising budgets. But keep in mind, they could have sold that time and made a hundred-and-fifty mil but chose instead to raise its self-worth and boast about its most recent programming purchase to anyone who cared.

For the past four autumns, KCBS Channel 2 has filled Sunday afternoon programming with . . .

``Oh, man,'' says station general manager John Culliton. ``A lot of junk. I know a lot of knives were sold.''

In large part because of the return of the NFL to the network docket, KCBS' ``Sports Central'' will become the channel's largest commitment to a sports show.

At times during the NFL season when CBS has just an early game, ``Sports Central'' could run from about 1-to-5 p.m., leaving co-hosts Jim Hill and Bret Lewis plenty of banter time with reporter Lisa Guerrero, XTRA's Steve Hartman and former Chargers concussion-abused quarterback Stan Humphries.

``Sports Central'' will actually begin with a pre-taped 8-to-9 a.m. show - a pregame to CBS' ``NFL Today'' pregame - where the focus will be on previewing the games shown to L.A. that day and include some discussion of the gambling lines with the head of the Caesars Palace sports book.

Culliton admits that without advertising support, the show couldn't expand to such proportions, both in time commitment and talent hired. But with the NFL in tow, local advertisers have climbed over each other to support ancillaries shows like this. That spills over into the affiliates' other prime-time programming.

``This was above and beyond a smart decision for the network,'' said Culliton, whose CBS owned-and-operated affiliate has had to pay part of the freight for the network's rights fees. ``This station stands to make a lot more money that it otherwise wouldn't be making.''

Which means they didn't sell that many knives.

Some didn't read the fine print in the new NFL agreement until recently.

ABC and ESPN pulled off an Olympian feat by locking up the rights to all NFL highlights shown over the TV airwaves from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Sundays.

The impact could be felt less by shows like KCBS' ``Sports Central,'' which has talking heads to fill time, but more with the three-man staff at Fox's ``Overtime.'' Each can show only six minutes of game highlights in that time window. Don't be stunned if ``Sports Central'' uses much of that highlight reel time on Chargers games, with Humphries and Hartman there for local opinion and CBS established as the AFC network.

Fox Sports Net is also limited with highlights in that window. In the all-roads-lead-to-Disney mentality, the idea is for ESPN to monopolize the highlights for its ``NFL Prime Time'' show from 4-to-5 p.m.

Disney, also trying its darndest to make ``Sunday Night Football'' seem so much like ``Monday Night Football'' that it even has Hank Williams Jr. doing a theme song for the ESPN game, hasn't made much ado about reminding folks that Monday's kickoff will be at about 5:20 p.m - or when many L.A. commuters are frantically trying to find the AM station with Jack Buck and Hank Stram calling the game on their car radios.

(Clue in: Buck and Stram no longer do MNF calls. And XTRA-AM 690 has the national coverage, if the Valley boundaries allow you to obtain the signal).

The 40-minute-earlier kickoff is clearly to benefit East Coast prime-time viewers at the expense of the West Coast audience.

``I'm as curious as you are as how this will shake out,'' said Al Michaels, the only West Coast member (Brentwood) of the MNF crew. ``For someone who has walked into the house at 6:30 for the last 26 years, there could be a one-sided game that determines whether or not to stick with the broadcast. The research department apparently knows more than we do about it. In my informal polls, I haven't heard anyone say, `That's too early.' ''

Michaels' poll did not include the greater Los Angeles area.

Reinforcing the idea that enough is never enough, CNN's one-hour NFL preview show will air at 7 a.m. local time. That'll be 4 a.m. Alaska and Hawaii.

ESPN's again-expanded two-hour infomercial begins at 8 a.m. and will have Hootie and the Blowfish as the in-studio band for Week 1.

God bless the NFL.

SOUND BYTES

By Tom Hoffarth E-mail: sptmediaaol.com

WHAT SMOKES

ABC's Frank Gifford, relegated to a sports bar in Baltimore for ``Monday Night Football'' pregame babble, apparently will never be allowed to live down le affaire. On the cover of the Sept. 7 issue of People magazine, there's Frank and Kathie Lee lumped in with the Clintons under the headline ``Surviving Infidelity.'' On the cover of the September issue of Redbook magazine, there's Kathie Lee smiling under the headline: ``It's been a year since `it' happened. Here's how she's surviving the worst betrayal a wife can face. . . .'' Then there's reports Kathie Lee is livid over her and Frankie's inclusion in a book about to be published titled ``Women Who Stay With Men Who Stray: The Untold Truth About Infidelity.'' What has her most upset is the book publisher is Hyperion, which is owned by Disney, which also produces ``Regis and Kathie Lee'' and still employs Frank. There's the old saying that there's no such thing as bad publicity. Frankly, Mr. Gifford would not concur.

WHAT CHOKES

The Football Network will launch as promised Saturday - for just two hours, on large satellite dishes only. From 9-to-10 a.m., it'll be on Telstar 5, C-band, Transponder 15 with a Pac-10 preview show and a show on the San Diego Chargers cheerleaders. Then, from 1:30-to-2:30 p.m., on Transponder 16, it'll be the Notre Dame coach's press conference from earlier in the week, with a reminder to watch the Irish opener vs. Michigan on NBC. Maybe we expected more, but we understand you've got to start somewhere.

Fox's Terry Bradshaw celebrated his 50th birthday Wednesday promoting Fox football on CBS' ``Late Show with David Letterman.'' Bradshaw's first choice, ``The Magic Hour,'' did not respond to his request to come on.

New ABC ``Monday Night Football'' analyst Boomer Esiason has a novel approach. The new ABC Monday Night sidekick has a book entitled ``Toss,'' about to be published. Boomer admitted to the New York Post that the book is a little racy and he'll ``probably catch some heat on it, but that's what you're supposed to do.'' Gifford does not endorse this book, either.

WHAT SMOKED ON LOCAL TV

The top 10 Nielsen-rated sports events (with their share numbers) on L.A. television from Aug. 27 to Sept. 2:

Event Date Station Rt/Sh.x

Pigskin: USC-Purdue 8/30 KABC 6.3/16

Angels-N.Y. Yankees 8/27 KCAL 6.1/11

Dodgers-N.Y. Mets 8/28 KTLA 5.8/11

Little League final 8/29 KABC 5.6/16

Dodgers-N.Y. Mets 8/29 Fox 5.4/14

Kickoff: Texas A&M-FSU8/31 KABC 5.3/10

Angels-Cleveland 9/1 KCAL 4.9/10

Angels-Boston 8/30 KCAL 4.7/12

Angels-Boston 8/28 KCAL 4.4/10

Dodgers-Montreal 8/27 KTLA 3.8/6

x-One rating point equals 50,092 TV homes in Los Angeles; a share is the percentage of all the TV sets in use at that time.

CAPTION(S):

2 Boxes

Box: (1) SOUND BYTES (See Text)

(2) WHAT SMOKED ON LOCAL TV (See Text)