DUO MAKES CHANNEL 9 SUBLIME; MURRAY AND IRELAND HAVE JUST THE RIGHT CHEMISTRY.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

This just in:

KCAL Channel 9 sportscasters Tom Murray and John Ireland genuinely enjoy working with each other, actually help each other with stories and don't talk bad about the other guy behind his back.

In this town, that's news.

Not to generalize and say every L.A. sports TV pretty boy has one eye on the TelePrompTer and the other looking over his shoulder to see who's about to climb their backs on the ladder to success.

But it happens. For many, it's advancement in the entertainment biz more than an endeavour into journalism - if not for sports, they'd be doing weather reports or infomercials.

So when you find a couple of sportscasters secure enough in their position to co-exist in the same building, schooled enough in how to do the job for the local newscast and clever enough to make something entertaining and informative without acting like a goofball, there's a huge advantage in the delivery of sports news.

Murray and Ireland have it.

``At the end of the day, we're very much on the same page,'' said Murray.

``I don't think either of us can go more than 10 minutes without talking about the other guy,'' said Ireland.

``If there's ever a breaking story in this city, I can't see anyone who does a better job than Tom and John on it,'' said KCAL sports executive producer Scott Henry. ``There's an honest respect for their jobs and no tension about who does what. It's a dream job for me to work with them.''

What's not to enjoy about working for KCAL?

Since it's the L.A. home for the Lakers (the past 21 seasons), Clippers, Kings, Ducks and Angels, plus boxing and some horse racing, there's rarely a night when KCAL isn't carrying a local sporting event. Murray and Ireland often are dispatched to these things as on-site reporters, home and on the road, and must be on top of the news from all these teams in order to maintain credibility. It's not unusual for Ireland to be at a Lakers game in Portland while Murray might be at a Ducks game in Detroit and the two of them hold a conversation on the air.

The independent station devoted to local and national news between 8 and 11 each weeknight gives Murray and Ireland a 15-minute block of sports on their showcase newscast of the night called appropriately ``The Final Quarter.'' That's about 12 minutes more than any other sportscaster gets on the other L.A. stations. And there's discussion about expanding it to a half-hour show on the weekend, where more of their special reports can air (such as the ones Murray has done in the past on Bruce McNall, Al Davis and Marvin Cobb).

The station has also survived a noisy change in ownership last year. Disney, which put a heap of money into the news production for seven years, had to sell it off when it purchased Cap Cities (and the ABC network). Young Broadcasting took over and the staff was practically cut in half, but the dedication to the news format hasn't dwindled.

And it doesn't hurt when your station general manager is Don Corsini and the sports executive is Pat McClenahan, the same two who were an integral part of the evolution of Prime Ticket into Prime Sports and finally into Fox Sports West. Their decision to leave Fox and go to KCAL was in part because they wanted to remain in L.A. news rather than continue in the direction that Fox had taken the city's first and only all-sports cable channel.

As a result, KCAL has assigned a camera person and editor to sports - Jodie Mena and Josh Bradford - along with producer Bill Mahoney. It sounds like a simple thing, but it means Murray and Ireland don't have to scramble to find someone on staff to run out on a story with them who might not know a lick about sports.

Ask the players at the other stations if they have the same luxury.

``We're really a sports-intensive station,'' said Murray, a KCAL sports reporter/anchor since March, 1990. ``I think one thing that has separated us from the others in the market is our feature stories. And now we have a huge block of time to run them. There are a lot of stories out there, and it's what I think John and I do best.''

Viewers who go to ESPN, Fox cable or CNN/SI for their national highlight packages might find the local sportscast obsolete. In some ways they are. You hear of surveys done on local newscasts showing sports is the most trivial element of the high money-grossing show - weather is most important - which explains why their segments have been sliced to almost nothing in recent years. And with newscasts skewed toward a female audience, it's no wonder the fluff that's released in the ``sports'' segments on the 4, 5 and 6 p.m. shows has no substance.

It's also why anyone with any kind of talent becomes bored and tends to leave the market.

THE ANNUAL DAILY NEWS BEST AND WORST OF L.A. MEDIA

L.A. SPORTS TV ANCHORS/REPORTERS

Author's note: We've tried presenting this right-side up, upside-down and reverse angle, but have never been comfortable with using the Top 10/Bottom 5 format for this collection of highly paid, under-used Tinker Toys. This year, we have decided to rank them in order of sportscaster teams. Some have learned how to do it with mirrors; others are too busy looking in the mirrors. Some we'd just as well like to see in our rear-view mirror as we pull away:

1. KCAL Channel 9 - Tom Murray and John Ireland: Before coming to L.A., Murray worked in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Dallas while Ireland was in Monroe, La., and Beaumont, Texas. They're not going anywhere in the near future.

2. KCBS Channel 2 - Jim Hill and Bret Lewis. Both know all about the importance of nurturing the community - Hill might be one of the city's most recognized persons, not just among sports fans. (Maybe it's because of all those two-shots he has during an interview). Their weekend shows, usually a wrapup to a national game from the network, shouldn't be missed. What they did with coverage of UCLA in the Cotton Bowl was far and away better than any other local station. Hill somehow finds a way to be at the site, while Lewis is the point man on the desk (and they send some other schmuck to the sportsbar to get whatever fan reaction they think they need). They both have great smiles, which seems to be an important trait at the good-news ``Eye Team.''

3. KCOP Channel 13 - Newy Scruggs and a reporter-to-be-named-later: Scruggs' Sunday night show that focuses just on local sports turned a year old recently and has featured guests like Deacon Jones, Jim Edmonds, Michael Moorer, Bruce Jenner, Gail Devers, Todd Zeile, Darrell Russell . . . do we need to go on? If you're not wrapped up in some edited-down network movie of the week, try something Newy. Hardly anyone in town does more with less.

4. KTLA Channel 5 - Tony Hernandez and Ed Arnold, with Stu Nahan: THE RAIDERS ARE COMING BACK TO L.A.!! All right, Tony Two-Tone, calm down a second and stop trying to flip Hal Fishman's wig. A rejuvenated Hernandez may be just a little excited that he's out from the drudgery of KCOP, but the station's new full-time weeknight replacement for Nahan can't rely on Nate Holden as a source of information. Hernandez left himself a huge out - ``Al Davis can always change his mind'' - after reporting about a Raiders return last week that was teased shamelessly all during the 10 p.m. newscast leading up to his 10:55 spot. Arnold, who spent some time with Hernandez at Channel 7 once upon a time, has found his weekend wrapup show too rewarding to give up. Meanwhile, Nahan even seems more alive with his occasional commentaries now that he doesn't have to go through the motions of reading scores. Oh, by the way, have you heard? THE RAIDERS ARE COMING BACK TO L.A.!!

5. KABC Channel 7 - Todd Donoho, Rob Fukuzaki and Rick Lozano: Tapes of Donoho's work are now shown to aspiring sportscasters, much like the movie ``Red Asphalt'' is shown to high schoolers in drivers' training. He's a smart guy, but the Maxwell Smart look-alike is so plugged into his formatted delivery, if news breaks, it kinda impedes on everything. Fukuzaki, the only Asian-American sportscaster in the city and the only one at the station with any hope of getting out alive, has to stop acting as one of Donoho's human props on the ``Monday Night Live!'' train wreck that slams into our homes after Al Michaels signs off. Lozano has been hanging onto a career not because of his good looks or sassy broadcasting skills.

6. KNBC Channel 4 - Fred Roggin, Carlos Del Valle and Gary Cruz: Some people also mistake the Fallbrook Mall for a mall, but all you've got is a collection of stores that happen to be on the same plot of land, gussied up by a facade of neon and escalators to enhance the Hot Dog On A Stick ambience, linked together by the greatest oxymoron ever, the JC Penney outlet store. That's the Channel 4 sports team. While Roggin tries desperately to launch a morning chat show career - he does not have the gift of gabardine - the other two try to fill in like Bondo on a Cadillac. Del Valle and Cruz couldn't shuck corn if given a bag of frozen Green Giant niblets and told how to operate the microwave oven. We'd rather clean our ears out with a rusty paper clip than sit through a sportscast that uses the same formula of sound bites, stand-ups, voice overs and video (those at 2 and 7 are also guilty) by this affiliate that once had Chick Hearn, Bryant Gumbel and Ross Porter fill the big chair.

7. KTTV Channel 11 - Rick Garcia and Randy Kerdoon: Fox Sports pumps Murdoch money into every corner of its operation except the L.A. affiliate's sportscast. Why should it? Would Fox want viewers to watch Garcia and Kerdoon deliver the three-minute report when they're competing with Van Earl Wright and Suzy Kolber on Fox Sports Net? ``Fox Overtime'' is a fine vehicle for an NFL postgame show, but how many are sticking around after the 49ers-Cowboys game to get postgame comments? Why not just shut it down and move Garcia and Kerdoon across town to replace a few pieces of furniture that Randy Sparage broke. Garcia, a Quartz Hill grad, and Kerdoon, a longtime Valley figure, deserve better treatment.

- Tom Hoffarth

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