Kicking Around The NFL Network

No doubt, you’ve seen the ads for the NFL Network games starting Thanksgiving night with Denver at Kansas City.... Or you know that the Bengals-Ravens game Nov. 30 is the second NFL Network telecast. So here’s the good news and bad news:
--Good News: Bengals fans will be able to watch the Ravens game on Thursday, Nov. 30. As with the ESPN contract, the NFL Network games must be simulcast on an over-the-air station in the teams’ markets. Ch. 5 won the bidding for the 8 p.m. Nov. 30 Bengals-Ravens game with announcers Cris Collinsworth and Bryant Gumbel.
--Now the bad news: Northern Kentucky’s Insight cable, which has the NFL Network on digital Ch. 547, will not carry the game. Insight execs refused to pay the "exhorbitant fee" for eight NFL Network games this year, says John Dobken, Insight spokesman. "We opted not to buy that package to hold cone costs to our customers," he says.
Time Warner has never carried the NFL Network here. (Time Warner wants to put it on a extra-pay sports tier, and the NFL wants wider distribution.) So you’ll need DirecTV or Dish Network to see all eight NFL Network games. At www.nfl.com/nflnetwork/faq you can get more info, and send an e-mail to your cable company requesting the NFL Network.

Will Time Warner ever pick up the NFL Network? Or ESPNU?

"Vanished" banished to the web
"Vanshished" has vanished, and "Justice" could be next. Fox has canceled the Jerry Bruckheimer drama about FBI agents (Ming-Na, Eddie Cibrian, Esai Morales) searching for the kidnapped wife (Joanne Kelly) of a Georiga senator. The last four shows will be streamed on MySpace www.myspace.com/fox starting today, one each Friday through Dec. 8.
Fox also announced that back-to back "House" episodes will air 8-10 p.m. Mondays in December. Victor Garber’s "Justice" is moving from Mondays to the "Vanished" slot at 8 p.m. Friday in December.
More Fox news today: Fox has ordered six more episodes of "Stand Off," the FBI hostage negotiators drama (8 p.m. Tuesday), and nine more "Til Death," the Brad Garrett-Joely Fisher sitcom (8 p.m. Thursday).

More TV renewals
ABC’s "What About Brian" and NBC’s "Friday Night Lights" are safe for the year, with full season orders.

TV tonight
My suggestion is to TiVo "Mayor Dog," the one-hour show tonight (9 p.m., Animal Planet) about the black Lab that’s mayor Rabbit Hash, so you can watch parts on fast forward. I’ve seen the entire show, and was surprised at how much of the video repeats in the hour, as if they didn’t have enough footage of Junior the dog or the town. Filmmaker Jude Gerard Prest ("Rabbit Hash: Center of the Universe") shot the film in June 2005 in Rabbit Hash and around Boone County. (In 18 months they couldn’t get enough new footage to sustain an hour?) Ben Stein narrates the film.

Christmas musical note
As mentioned in a post on this blog earlier this week, MIX 94.1 goes all-Christmas music at 5 p.m. today. It will continue -- except for during the Whoopi Goldberg morning show -- through Christmas Day.