IT'S `CYCLYSM' SEASON AGAIN {SOURCE TOM HOFFARTH THE MEDIA.

Assuming televised cycling runs in cycles, the Outdoor Life Network could be looking at this year's Tour de France as a chance to take its own victory lap. With Lance Armstrong willing to forget Paris after this last spin through the countryside, OLN should be just glad it could go along for the ride.

But it has bigger plans.

Starting with Saturday morning's prologue at 5:30 and clear through to stage 20 at the Arc d'Triomphe on July 24, OLN will go full blast again, devoting another 300-plus hours of programming to the great reality show known as Lance TV. Although many of those hours repeat the three- hour, early-morning live stage coverage, it's all capped with the Al Trautwig-hosted, prime-time wrapup that drew rave reviews a year ago.

Looking ahead to the post-Lance years, OLN, which is in 63 million homes as a niche cable channel, isn't ready to pull off to the side of the road and rest. It figures it has positioned itself well enough to absorb any kind of viewership slump that will naturally occur in the coming years because of the way it has taught many novices about the sport, the history, the training and the all-out fun surrounding this event.

``We've recognized that some day Lance would retire, and this will need to stand on its own,'' said OLN president Gavin Harvey, a UCLA alum and former executive in Los Angeles with E! Channel and fX before taking over the Stamford, Conn.-based network. ``Last year we expanded the prime-time segment (to three hours) to make it geared toward a wider audience and tell the viewers more about the sport, with more features and history and training.

``Cycling is a complicated sport to watch but once you understand the strategies and the roles of the players, it's a lot like learning to watch baseball. We hope to continue to demystify it each year and establish a viewer base who will want to come back to it even when Lance isn't racing.

``There's no doubt Lance isn't just a great American cyclist, but an icon, a one-name athlete. He's a huge asset to have in the Tour, but the Tour is awesome enough to get people to see what we see on (a) basic level. Sure, it'll eventually shrink, but that happened when Michael Jordan left the NBA. We'll always have a loyal core and be in a position to grow.''

Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen and Bob Roll could be enough of a hook to bring viewers back in the coming years. Liggett has done the Tour for 33 years, and Roll has become almost a Dick Vitale-like character.

Last year's OLN coverage of Armstrong's sixth consecutive Tour title was nearly as breathtaking as the ride itself. Calling it ``The Cyclysm,'' the network has called this year's event ``Cyclysm II: The Ride of A Lifetime.'' A typical day's coverage will be going live from 5:30 to 8:30 a.m., race-action replay from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and again from 2 to 4 p.m., the prime-time show from 8 to 11 p.m. and another replay from midnight to 2:30 a.m. On some days, live coverage begins at 3:30 a.m.

Harvey said he didn't really know how many West Coast viewers actually set their alarm clocks to watch each stage live, but he suspected from his experiences that most looked forward to the replays because of how it fit into their day.

``There's so many hours a month with the Tour that people have plenty of time to watch it when they want,'' Harvey said. ``We see this as our Super Bowl, our March Madness in July, and we've put as much of it on as we can.

``When I lived in L.A. (for 18 years), I remember it messed up a lot of the cyclists' riding schedules. They like to ride early, and they didn't want to know the results until they could get home to watch.''

SOUND BYTES

WHAT SMOKES

--The decision to bring in 26-year-old Spero Dedes as the new play-by-play guy for KLAC-AM (570) concludes the Lakers' procession of unnecessary offseason broadcast reshuffling, a few weeks after Joel Meyers was officially shuttled over from radio to replace Paul Sunderland as TV play-by-play man on FSN and KCAL-Channel 9. In Dedes, who was host on several shows on NBA TV the past few years and has filled in on New Jersey Nets games for the YES TV network in New York, the Lakers get a lifetime East Coaster with very little radio experience outside of starting off as a news updater on WFAN in New York. ``I've always wanted to be the play-by-play voice for a team,'' said Dedes, a New Jersey native and Fordham University graduate, apparently unaware that most in this town still consider the late Chick Hearn as the voice of the Lakers. ``I thought I was going to have to wait 10 years till a job like this to come around. To have it happen so quick and to have it happen with this team is unbelievable. It's incredible.'' Dedes said he won't be doing the early-morning weekday radio talk show on 570-AM, as Meyers did last season. He also has no conflicts, as Meyers did with Westwood One on the NFL, and will do every Laker game.

--NBC has increased its coverage of the Association of Volleyball Professionals to five tournaments and 14 hours, about a 33 percent exposure bump from last year, which starts with this weekend's event at Cincinnati. The women's and men's finals air Saturday and Sunday at 1:30 p.m., with Chris Marlowe back on the play-by-play. Karch Kiraly does the analysis for the women's final, and when he returns to playing in the men's bracket, Mike Dodd does the men's final, with Heather Cox on the sand for interviews.

WHAT CHOKES

--Part of the glut of NFL fantasy-league material already being pushed on newsstands and bookstores is a preview guide issued by, of all people, the NFL and selling for $8.99. The ``NFL.com Fantasy Football 2005 Preview'' is 160 pages of sleeper picks, position rankings and a mock draft, published by Time Inc. Home Entertainment for the league. It includes an introduction by senior analyst and former Dallas Cowboys executive Gil Brandt that asks: ``Is there an end in sight to the ever-growing business of fantasy football? Don't count on it! ... There are many fantasy magazines out there, but we feel this one will be the gold standard.'' Sure, and more gold in the NFL's pockets, driving people to its NFL.com league-manager site and trying to disguise this as something more of a playful exercise in pigskin bonding rather than a publicly accepted form of gambling. What's next, the NFL releasing its own game spreads? ESPN also issued its first fantasy prospectus (also 160 pages, $6.99) that includes an easy-to-use ``cheat sheet'' with a mock draft-day guide that includes boxes to check off after someone has been picked. Can it get any easier to join one of these leagues and lose a few hundred bucks?

--The next chapter in the broadcasting slide of Paul Page involves describing how many hot dogs a person can cram down his esophagus. Earlier this year, ABC dumped the man known as ``The Voice of the Indianapolis 500'' for its coverage of the famed race, and now ESPN is trying to revive his career by hiring him to do the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest live from Coney Island, N.Y., Monday at 9 a.m. Charlie Jones wasn't available? To make it special, ESPN also has procured a blimp to fly overhead for the first time to give the event some importance. Later this month, ESPN will carry the first Alka Seltzer U.S. Open of Competitive Eating, which took place at the ESPN Zone in Las Vegas. If Page can stomach it, he'll be there, too.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo:

(1) OLN hopes Lance Armstrong's last Tour de France translates into increased viewership.

Peter Dejong/Associated Press

(2) DEDES

Box:

SOUND BYTES

BY TOM HOFFARTH