One will look out on Lansdowne Street by the intersection of Brookline Avenue and be the home for WEEI's pregame ''The Big Show.'' Fans arriving for the game will be able to watch and listen as Glenn Ordway and friends broadcast in a fishbowl. A new speaker system will allow fans to listen in, and there will be access for fans to go on air as callers from the site.

The second studio will be inside the Diamond Room, for use by Ted Sarandis on postgame broadcasts. But he won't be left alone as the crowd exits. The club will open the room to the public as its own version of a sports pub following games.

This is known as a joint venture with a broadcast partner - and a means of maximizing those all-important revenue streams.

Surrounding all of this is an actual broadcast of a ballgame. Some things will remain the same as WEEI begins the second year of its five-year deal. Jerry Trupiano will be calling the Red Sox for the 10th season and alongside will be Joe Castiglione, on the job for a 20th year.

They'll go on the air 35 minutes before the first pitch. Trupiano will do a segment with interim general manager Mike Port or another member of the front office, there will be the ''Inside Pitch'' round-table with several members of the media (Globe writers remain banned from WEEI shows), and Castiglione will have his pregame chat with manager Grady Little.

NESN, too, is in the midst of some renovations, building a bigger studio for its pregame and postgame shows. Studio host Bob Rodgers and reporter Tom Caron will handle the half-hour pregame ''Red Sox Digest.'' They'll be joined by analyst Jim Corsi on an expanded ''Extra Innings'' postgame show. Another change will see Caron traveling with the team. This ''shoulder programming'' on NESN will have its first outing of the season tomorrow, for the exhibition game against Jimy Williams's Astros in Houston (game time 2:30 p.m.).

Don Orsillo is back for his second season on play-by-play for the regional sports network, with Jerry Remy handling analysis for both NESN (89 games) and Fox affiliate Channel 25 (74 games), where he pairs with standout play-by-play man Sean McDonough.

This will be the first season in which the Sox and NESN reap the full benefit of added revenue generated by the team being on basic cable (available in some 3.2 million homes in New England).

After the team moved to basic cable in midseason last year, ratings rose 309 percent and the games averaged a 7 rating, a stretch that including the dismal month of September.

Advertising and subscriber fee revenue skyrocketed at NESN as ratings soared, a direct result of two factors: The move to basic and the team's red-hot start. During the summer, a Sox game on NESN was the highest-rated program of the night in the Boston market on 20 occasions.

Speaking of big ratings, Channel 25 has played a major role in the team's television success the past two years.

The ''Sox on Fox'' connection came about when Channel 25 decided it could prosper where three others had failed. Channel 38 had done well with the Sox until the final years of their partnership turned sour. Subsequent deals with Channel 68 and JCS failed to bring prosperity to both parties.

But Channel 25 made it work. It also reaches the 20 percent of Boston market homes without cable, keeping alive a long baseball tradition.

Channel 25's ratings have increased in each of the first two seasons of its present three-year deal with the team, doubling the numbers of adults reached per game from 84,768 in 1999 to 169,536 in 2001.

From 1995-99, 12 regular-season telecasts reached a 10.0 rating or higher. In 2000, the first year on Channel 25, 12 games hit double digits, and last year 44 games were above 10. Tricia Maloney, who tracks numbers at Channel 25, estimates that well over a half-million adults (25-54) tuned in to each of those 44 high-rated games.

Channel 25's Fox affiliation also means it's the home of the All-Star Game, divisional playoffs, LCS, World Series, and Saturday afternoon games through 2006.

Two factors could change this picture, both related to contracts.

The first is what seems to be increasingly contentious talks on baseball's basic agreement and the potential threat of labor strife. That would be a pox on all broadcast houses.

The second is what will happen when Channel 25's deal runs out after this season. Will the new Sox ownership, which also owns 80 percent of NESN, put more games on cable, following the lead of the Yankees' new YES regional sports network?

If so, could the channel wind up back on a premium tier?

Those are stories that will unfold along with the team's on-field fortunes this season and beyond.

Opening night

The season starts Sunday night with Cleveland at Anaheim on ESPN2 at 8 p.m. It's the 13th year for ESPN's exclusive Sunday night games and the 13th year for Jon Miller and Joe Morgan as a broadcasting tandem. The Sunday night games will feature the second season of ESPN's ''K Zone'' computer-generated strike zone technology ... On Monday, ESPN and ESPN2 will feature a five-game schedule: 1 p.m., Phillies-Braves (ESPN) and Pirates-Mets (ESPN2); 4 p.m., Rockies-Cardinals (ESPN) and Twins-Royals (ESPN2); and 10 p.m., Rangers-Athletics (ESPN2) ... With ESPN picking up the games that were formerly on Fox Family and fX, ESPN and ESPN2 will have five games a week: Sunday night, Monday night, a Wednesday matinee, and the traditional Wednesday night doubleheader ... The Sox and Yankees help open the Fox ''Saturday Baseball Game of the Week'' season on June 1. Fox is right back with the world champion Diamondbacks vs. the Sox at Fenway the following Saturday ... SBN (Spanish Broadcasting Network) will have all 162 Sox games on radio, with J.P. Villaman, Juan Baez , and (when he's available) Lowell Spinners pitching coach Luis Tiant on an eight-station network with WLYN (1360) as the flagship. The rest of the all-AM lineup: Brockton (1410), Framingham (1200), Lawrence (1490), Springfield (1270), Worcester (1310), Hartford (1120), and Providence (1220).

This story ran on page D16 of the Boston Globe on 3/29/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

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