MORE LOOKS FOR 'QUEER EYE'?

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH Media

Houston, we have no problem with you staging the Super Bowl on Sunday.

CBS, your problem is trying to make anyone this side of Tobacco Road care about it.

``This 'alleged' Super Bowl ... may be a big deal in Houston, but it's not gettin' it done in the rest of the country,'' said Tony Kornheiser, manufacturing a rant at the top of Wednesday's ``Pardon The Interruption'' on ESPN.

``Where's the buzz?'' he implored, noting the game has had an extra week to stimulate interest.

Hey, when an alleged NFL TV partner like ESPN helps promote the league's premier event like that, that ``Queer Eye'' marathon Bravo is using as counterprogramming Sunday afternoon looks even spiffier.

Then there's Brett Favre, who, after encountering a gaggle of reporters in Houston, was asked to make a prediction.

``Who's playing?'' the Green Bay quarterback answered. ``I won't watch it. I really don't care. No offense to the two teams, but I'm sure there'll be enough people watching.''

Wanna bet?

If not for those who'll congregate in some neighbor's den solely to fire down some warm high-carb Pabst Blue Ribbon and rate all the commercials, the Carolina Panthers and New England Patriots by themselves would be hard-pressed to even attract the crickets needed to chirp in the background.

Factoring in all CBS will be up against - and it's too late for the ``Tribute to NASCAR'' halftime show that surely would keep the North Carolina viewers pleased as punch - it's easy to draw the conclusion that this stacks up to be the lowest-rated Super Bowl in all its Roman numeral history.

Here's why:

--The viewing pool: A Philadelphia-Indianapolis showdown not only would have generated some needed star power around the nation, but it would have had a built-in audience from the fourth and 25th TV markets.

By CBS' math, however, those who make up the Carolina and New England home markets are bigger.

Although Charlotte, N.C., rates 28th among Nielsen's 210 metered markets (986,830 households), when it's combined with No. 29 Raleigh-Durham, N.C., No. 35 Greenville, S.C., and No. 46 Greensboro, N.C., there's a combined 3,389,940 - which trails the No. 3 Chicago market by only about 10,000.

And when you take No. 6 Boston (2.39 million) and add in No. 27 Hartford/New Haven, Conn., and No. 48 Providence, R.I., you've actually topped Chicago with 4.02 million homes.

Charlotte (50.2 rating/66 share) and Philadelphia (48.8/62) had the two best Nielsen numbers by city for the NFC championship two weeks ago, and Boston (46.5/75) and Indianapolis (46.0/72) were the two biggest AFC title-game audiences.

But those kind of ratings don't mean much if No. 1 market New York (7.3 million homes) or No. 2 market Los Angeles (5.4 million) is ambivalent.

``Of course, theoretically a bigger market means more viewers, but the amount supporting their teams in the North Carolina area is pretty impressive,'' CBS Sports president Sean McManus said.

Four of the top 10 rated shows of all time involve Super Bowls, but the 48.3 rating Super Bowl XX got in 1986 was the last to crack that list.

Still, McManus realizes that even if the past three Super Bowls barely were over a 40 rating - the all-time low is 39.0, which CBS had in 1990 - that constitutes gold by any of TV's lower-the-bar standards today.

``The 40-plus ratings magic line is very achievable no matter what teams are playing,'' he said. ``It's only important to get a competitive game that hopefully goes down to the last play. To a large extent, Super Bowl ratings are bullet-proof.''

CBS had better hope ``NFL Today'' host Jim Nantz's claim that this will be the first overtime Super Bowl in history also is a bullet-proof prediction.

--The technology: Another way to alienate viewers, as CBS found with its floundering use of Cable Cam during the AFC playoffs, is to reintroduce what it calls the ``new and improved'' EyeVision.

After using the jerky picture machine three years ago in Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa, Fla., this replay system that freezes the action and changes the angles like in the movie ``The Matrix'' has the cameras spaced 270 degrees around the stadium closer together (5 degrees apart instead of 12) and at a lower angle.

``We've been testing it a lot and, for lack of a better word, it's less jerky,'' McManus said. ``It's near flawless, but the replay you get is very vivid and worth that little hesitation between the camera pictures.''

As for Cable Cam, used for the first time on a Super Bowl broadcast, CBS game producer Larry Cavalina claims it will be used ``judiciously. We feel it's a wonderful teaching tool.''

So is standing in the corner with a dunce cap.

--The competition: About this brainstorm someone had to put a bunch of publicity seeking floozies in frilly underwear to partake in a frivolous football game:

Pure genius.

Especially since one of the sponsors paying for ad time on CBS' Super Bowl telecast is a new Viagra competitor.

The promoters of the first (and perhaps only) Lingerie Bowl couldn't have picked a better set of circumstances to try this $20 pay-per-view diversion, which is more than just a 15-minute gimmick to siphon viewers at halftime who don't care to endure a Janet Jackson or Kid Rock alleged performance.

The 1 1/2-hour production from the Coliseum starts at 4 p.m. and includes a free repeat on DirecTV if the second half of the Super Bowl doesn't hold your attention.

The biggest PPV sporting event of all time - the second Mike Tyson-Lennox Lewis bout - had 1.1 million buys. The brains behind the Lingerie Bowl predict 4 million buys here.

And they insist the game will go on, even if it does rain.

Somehow, it's been rated TV-14. Bring your own X-Ray EyeVision.

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By Tom Hoffarth