Behind the Mic: Turner, CBS Sports Deploy Teams for NCAA March Madness' First Four; Robin Roberts To Lead ABC's First-Ever NFL Draft Coverage By Kristian Hernandez, Assistant Editor
Tuesday, March 19, 2019 - 9:00 am
Print This Story
Story Highlights
Behind the Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, including new deals, departures, and assignments compiled from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, Turner Sports and CBS Sports deploy their NCAA Men's College Basketball tournament broadcast teams for the first night of the First Four doubleheader, a familiar face seen on Good Morning America is headlining ABC's coverage of the NFL Draft, and the college football scene on Fox Sports reveals their on-air lineup
CBS Sports and Turner Sports will once again feature a marquee lineup of announcers for their ninth year of combined coverage of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship. All 67 games from the 2019 NCAA Tournament will be televised across four national television networks - TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV - and via NCAA March Madness Live, beginning tonight with the NCAA First Four on truTV.
This year's NCAA Final Four National Semifinals on Saturday, April 6, and National Championship on Monday, April 8, from Minneapolis, Minn. will be televised on CBS. Jim Nantz, Grant Hill, Bill Raftery, and reporter Tracy Wolfson will call the Final Four National Semifinals and National Championship for the fifth consecutive year.
New commentator roles for this year's coverage will include:
Jim Jackson calling games in Rounds 1 and 2 alongside Brad Nessler, Steve Lavin, and Evan Washburn. Jackson will also team with Spero Dedes, Steve Smith, and Ros Gold-Onwude for the First Four
Rules Analyst Gene Steratore providing rules and officiating analysis in studio from the First Four through the Regional Finals and on-site at the Final Four in Minneapolis.
Ernie Johnson and Greg Gumbel will again host studio coverage from the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City during the first full week of the tournament, joined by Charles Barkley, Clark Kellogg, and Kenny Smith. Johnson will host studio coverage from Atlanta during the second week of tournament action on Thursday and Friday, while Gumbel will anchor coverage from CBS Studios. Studio coverage originating from Turner Studios in Atlanta, hosted by Casey Stern during the first week, will feature Brendan Haywood, Seth Davis, Candace Parker, and college coaches. Wally Szczerbiak will contribute to studio coverage from New York City and Adam Zucker will provide game updates.
Following is the complete list of announcer pairings:
Play-by-Play / Analyst // Reporter
Nantz / Raftery / Hill // Wolfson
Brian Anderson / Chris Webber // Allie LaForce
Ian Eagle / Jim Spanarkel // Jamie Erdahl
Kevin Harlan / Reggie Miller / Dan Bonner // Dana Jacobson
Nessler / Lavin / Jackson // Washburn
Dedes / Len Elmore / Smith // Gold-Onwude
Andrew Catalon / Steve Lappas // Lisa Byington
Carter Blackburn / Debbie Antonelli // John Schriffen
The tournament will tip off Tuesday, March 19, and Wednesday, March 20, with the NCAA First Four on truTV. Harlan will call Tuesday's games with analysts Miller and Bonner, alongside Jacobson. Dedes will handle play-by-play on Wednesday with analysts Jackson and Smith and reporter Gold-Onwude. Studio coverage for the First Four will originate from Atlanta with Stern and analysts Haywood, Davis, and Parker.
Accompanying the live television presentation, NCAA March Madness Live will once again be the ultimate digital destination for direct access to all 67 games of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship.
Turner will televise the NCAA Final Four National Semifinals and National Championship in 2020, with the events alternating between CBS and Turner each year throughout the partnership
Good Morning America's Robin Roberts will host ABC's opening night presentation of the 2019 National Football League Draft, live from Nashville, Thursday, April 25 (8:00-11:30 p.m. ET), on The ABC Television Network and streaming. Roberts will host the prime-time broadcast of Round 1, joined on a separate set by co-host Rece Davis and the crew from College GameDay Built by The Home Depot.
As part of her host role, Roberts will conduct interviews from an ABC set located on Broadway in the Music City. Additionally, she will highlight the prospects selected by NFL teams during the Draft. Roberts will be reporting live from Nashville for Good Morning America on April 25.
For the first time ever, ABC will broadcast all three days of the NFL Draft in 2019, including back-to-back nights live in prime time, adding to the continued coverage on ESPN and NFL Network. ABC will provide differentiated coverage that focuses on the journey of the NFL Draft prospects, as viewers go up close and personal to understand the part their families play in their success and the hard work involved in attempting to become an NFL Draft selection. ABC coverage will feature Roberts, ESPN's College GameDay team and other special guests.
The award-winning anchor and host started her national broadcasting career as a SportsCenter anchor. At ESPN, she covered the NFL Draft and was a regular contributor to NFL PrimeTime. Roberts has continued to work with ESPN through the years at The ESPYS Awards, the Special Olympics World Games, and more. Under her leadership, Good Morning America has won several Emmy Awards for Outstanding Morning Program and the 2017 People's Choice Award for Favorite Daytime TV Hosting Team
Fox Sports announced plans for its new college football pregame show, featuring some of the biggest names to have played or coached the sport in the last 15 years. Host Rob Stone sits alongside a panel of analysts comprised of three-
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Behind the Mic: Turner, CBS Sports Deploy Teams for NCAA March Madness' First Four; Robin Roberts To Lead ABC's First-Ever NFL Draft Coverage By Kristian Hernandez, Assistant Editor 
