MWC 'strategy' seems like rerun

SO THE BEST advice that the folks at the Mountain West Conference, CSTV and Comcast can give fans is to call their satellite companies.

I know I watch too much TV, but doesn't this sound like a rerun?

Weren't we told this almost a year ago? Didn't not only MWC commissioner Craig Thompson but Utah's and BYU's athletic directors urge fans to call Dish and DirecTV, telling us that that was the way to get The mtn. picked up by the satellite TV companies?

And didn't that work about as well as Oregon's defense in the Las Vegas Bowl?

It's a year later, and there's still no deal to put The mtn. on DirecTV or Dish. Everyone involved is still hopeful. Progress is being made. Yadda yadda yadda.

I'm not telling you not to call. Maybe if you and about a million of your neighbors call, it will work.

But this has become a public-relations nightmare that the league can't wake up from. And to keep telling fans the same old stuff just doesn't cut it.

In a story by Dick Harmon that ran earlier this week in the DesMoNews, after admitting that The mtn. is currently available in 1.2 million homes, Thompson was quoted as saying, "For a first-of-its-kind college conference network, that is a success after one year."

Excuse me, but that's like a first-year football coach calling his season a success if his team goes 1-11.

Actually, if you go 1-11, at least you've won 8 percent of your games. At 1.2 million homes, The mtn. is in barely 1 percent of the homes in America.

To put that in perspective, I'm currently at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills (covering mostly entertainment, but a bit of sports from the likes of ESPN and NBC Sports). When I mention to my fellow TV critics that the Mountain West's TV channel is available in 1.2 million homes, they snicker. (They don't feel the pain of MWC fans, who stopped laughing a long time ago.)

A cable channel available in 10 times as many homes would be off the radar of every critic in the room. A cable channel in 20 times as many homes would be off their radar. A cable channel in 30 times as many homes would be off their radar.

I don't want to say that 1.2 million homes is nothing — it's certainly something to both viewers who have The mtn. and those who want desperately to see The mtn. But in the world of TV, it's pretty much, well, nothing.