Television
The Penguins were broadcast by local ABC affiliate WTAE-TV during the 1967–68 season, with the station's Sports Director Ed Conway handling the play-by-play during both the television and radio broadcast and would remain as the lone play-by-play broadcaster until the completion of the 1968–69 season.
Joe Tucker took over for Ed Conway during the 1969–70 season, and WPGH-TV and WTAE-TV splitting the broadcast. WPGH-TV retained the rights to broadcast the Penguins for the 1970–71 season with Bill Hamilton handing the play-by-play duties. The 1970–71 season was also the first season where the Penguins introduced a color commentator to the broadcast team, with John MacDonald taking the position as the booth's color commentator.
The broadcasting rights to the Penguins were then transferred to WIIC-TV 11 in 1971, with Sam Nover handling the play-by-play with several color commentators interchanged during his tenure. Nover eventually left WIIC to join NBC Sports as a play-by-play broadcaster for the National Football League. During the Penguins' time with WIIC, the station broadcast "about a dozen" Penguins game each season.
Penguins' games returned to WPGH-TV for the 1977–78 season with former long-time Pirates broadcaster Bob Prince handling the play-by-play. Prince was criticized by fans for not being knowledgeable towards the game and that his style was better suited for baseball than hockey. He was later removed from the broadcast team and reassigned as an intermission interviewer. In his place was Jim Forney, who had previously held the position of color commentator during Sam Novak's tenure.
Mike Lange, who joined the Penguins' broadcast team as a play-by-play announcer on the radio side in 1974–75, became the play-by-play broadcaster for the team at the start of the 1979–80 season. At his side was Terry Schiffauer, who had previously held the position of Penguins' Director of Public Relations and eventually transitioned into color commentator for Sam Novak since 1972–73. Lange and Schiffauer remained a team in the Penguins' broadcast booth until 1984–85, when he was replaced by Paul Steigerwald.
While the Penguins broadcast network transitioned from WPGH-TV (1979–90) to KDKA-TV (1991–96), along with the eventual transition to KBL (later Prime Sports) and eventually Fox Sports Pittsburgh 1996–2011), the team of Lange and Steigerwald remained a constant in the broadcast booth from 1985 until 1999. During this time, local stations WPGH and WPTT-TV also carried a handful of games that were not available on Fox Sports Pittsburgh during the 1996–97. Also notable during the 1996-97 NHL season is that former broadcaster Sam Nover returned to the team in a new role; this time as a post-game studio host, sharing duties with John Fedko and Thor Tolo.
With Steigerwald's departure in 1999, Mike Lange shared the broadcast booth with former Penguins' defenseman Troy Loney. Loney, a two-time Stanley Cup winner with the team in 1991 and 1992, remained in the position for one season before being replaced by Ed Olczyk. Lange and Olczyk were broadcast partners from 2000 until 2003, when Olczyk left the booth to become the eighteenth head coach in Pittsburgh Penguins history that had become upon due to the firing of previous coach Rick Kehoe after the 2002-03 NHL season.
With Olczyk's vacancy, the Penguins hired Bob Errey as their new color commentator for the start of the 2003–04 season (a position that he continues to hold as of the start of the 2012-13 NHL season. Lange and Errey remained in the booth until 2005–06. After twenty-six seasons in the television broadcast booth, Mike Lange was not retained by FSN Pittsburgh. Instead, he was replaced by former broadcast partner Paul Steigerwald, who remains the current play-by-play broadcaster for the team as of the 2012–13 season. Lange returned to the radio broadcast booth and currently holds the position of radio play-by-play announcer, the same position he had held with the team in the mid-1970s.
Every Penguins game is currently carried on the Root Sports Pittsburgh network, which is carried by cable providers in most of two states and parts of four others. All of Pennsylvania (save the 10 county Philadelphia metro area), all of West Virginia except the two counties in the Washington, D.C. metro area, 8 counties in eastern and southern Ohio, three counties in Western Maryland, 1 county in Southwestern New York state and 1 county in Northeastern Kentucky. In addition Fox Sports Ohio simulcasts Penguins hockey in the Cleveland metro area as well as some parts of Eastern Ohio and Northern Kentucky.
Dish Network, Verizon FiOS, and Direct TV all carry the Penguins games on their Root Sports Pittsburgh channel in HD nationally.
The TV announcers are:
- Paul Steigerwald, play-by-play (2006–present)
- Bob Errey, color commentator (2003–present)
- Dan Potash, in-game reporter (2006–present)
- Rob King and Jay Caufield, in-studio post-game reporters.
The Pittsburgh Penguins also receive monthly and sometimes weekly "game of the week" national exposure on both NBC Sports Network and NBC along with TSN and CBC Sports in Canada. Prior to 2004, Penguins games have been aired on ESPN and ESPN2.
Read more about this topic: Pittsburgh Penguins, Media, Broadcasters
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“Photographs may be more memorable than moving images because they are a neat slice of time, not a flow. Television is a stream of underselected images, each of which cancels its predecessor. Each still photograph is a privileged moment, turned into a slim object that one can keep and look at again.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“We cannot spare our children the influence of harmful values by turning off the television any more than we can keep them home forever or revamp the world before they get there. Merely keeping them in the dark is no protection and, in fact, can make them vulnerable and immature.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“The technological landscape of the present day has enfranchised its own electorates—the inhabitants of marketing zones in the consumer goods society, television audiences and news magazine readerships... vote with money at the cash counter rather than with the ballot paper at the polling booth.”
—J.G. (James Graham)