Cbs

Baltimore's Jim McKay anchored the first American telecast of the Summer Olympics in 1960 from a primitive CBS studio in Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Coverage of the Rome Games totaled 20 hours and cost the network $394,000 in rights fees. On Friday night, starting with the Opening Ceremonies, NBC Universal will launch what will ultimately total 5,535 hours of Olympics coverage across six network and cable outlets and one live streaming website over 17 days and nights.

CBS Thursday announced the launch of a national sports radio network that will include two stations in Baltimore and looks to seriously challenge ESPN dominance of the sports-talk airwaves. The CBS action, which includes Cumulus Media, another broadcasting giant, will make for an audience of about 10 million listeners when the network debuts Jan. 2. CBS Sports Radio will be able to draw on such resources as CBS Sports, CBS News and cbssports.com, making it one of the most impressive sources of sports information in broadcasting right off the bat. In Baltimore, CBS Sports will air 24/7 on WJZ-AM, while only certain elements of it will be carried on WJZ-FM (105.7 The Fan)

I have been meaning to write a big piece about CBS News and "This Morning" for two weeks. But other assignments took precedence, so now I'll have to write a much smaller piece a day late after the network has already celebrated 100 days of its revamped and journalistically-amped 'Early Show' with Charlie Rose and Gayle King. For more than a year before Chris Licht was lured away from MSNBC to re-invent the morning show, I had been writing that the CBS morning show was dead in the water as a journalistic enterprise and ought to be taken out in an alley behind West 57th Street and put out of its misery.

Thursday morning, ABC senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper posted a TwitPic of "Good Morning America" co-host Robin Roberts with the cutline "woman of the hour. " I can appreciate a newsperson congratulating a colleague, and I have to admit I was glad ABC News and not NBC News got the exclusive interview with Barack Obama to which the cutline referred. Headlines and history were made in the interview with Obama saying he was in favor of same-sex marriage. But the image struck me as part of a wrongheaded discourse generated by ABC and propagated by many of my critic colleagues celebrating Roberts and the network for getting this "scoop.

Weijia Jiang, who came to WJZ-TV in June of 2008 as a reporter, is leaving to join WCBS-TV in New York City. Both stations are owned by CBS. New York is the top market in the country. Jiang came to WJZ from WOBC-TV in Salisbury. She has a bachelor's degree from the College of William & Mary and a master's in broadcast news from the University of Syracuse. Born in China, Jiang grew up in West Virginia where her parents immigrated when she was 2. Jiang, whose last day at WJZ is May 31, will be replaced by Rochelle Ritchie, a multimedia reporter from WPTV in West Palm Beach, Florida.

CBS Sports Network analyst and former Syracuse All-American defenseman Steve Panarelli will be at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium Friday night to provide commentary for the Patriot League showdown between No. 8 Lehigh and No. 17 Navy. Panarelli, who can be followed on Twitter at @stevepanarelli, discussed Johns Hopkins' overtime win against Virginia, Cornell's steady record without Rob Pannell, and Denver's chances despite the loss of a starting goalie. What did you take from Johns Hopkins' 11-10 overtime win against Virginia this past Saturday?

(UPDATES with final figures and total tune-in through the telecast.) The CBS telecast of the 54th Grammy Awards Sunday was seen by an average audience of 39.91 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratrings released by the network. That's the second largest Grammy average audience in history and the largest audience for the music awards show since 1984. In 1984, TV was on another planet in a pre-fragmented media galaxy. In today's media world, the audience the Grammys drew is huge.

A rundown of what's going on the week of 2/13-2/19. MOVIES OPENING (Friday) Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance The Secret World of Arriety A Separation This Means War NOTABLE TV MONDAY BET Honors (special; 9 p.m.; BET) Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opener (special; 9 p.m.; CNBC) World's Toughest Truckers (series premiere; 10 p.m.; Discovery) TUESDAY Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show closing night (special; 8 p.m.; USA)

I wanted to like "Person to Person," the new-old CBS News interview show with Charlie Rose and Lara Logan trying to fill the celebrity interviewer shoes once worn by the legendary Edward R. Murrow. And with George Clooney as the first interviewee, I thought it couldn't miss. But it did. And I'm not here to blast it. The show just felt so flat, thin and plastic, I kept asking myself what am I getting here that I couldn't get on"Access Hollywood"or any of a half a dozen other sold-out-Hollywood show biz shows.