Arthur Smith: it's showtime - Fox Sports Net

Brandweek, May 4, 1998 by Mark Lang

The first thing that comes across when talking with Arthur Smith is his exuberance: The dude loves his job.

The executive vp, programming and production at Fox Sports Net is responsible for developing what goes on the air: "News, live events, studio stuff-how it's produced and scheduled, its look and design," he says, describing his duties at the ever-growing cluster of cable networks. These days, FSN, the three-year-old cable sports arm of' Fox/Liberty Networks, consists of 22 regional nets (in cities including Chicago, Detroit, New York and the San Francisco Bay area) that provide more than 7,500 hours of programming per year, covering more than 3,000 events and reaching about 60 million homes.

Hey, what's not to love? Rupert Murdoch and John Malone throwing oodles of money at the business; scooping up rights for baseball, football, hockey college and high-school sports, boxing, auto racing, tennis, and golf; and supplying the latest technological innovations. Of course, Smith still has to do something with all this manna from heaven.

"To maximize success," he explains, "we wrap strong national programming around local pro team coverage. We bring our critical mass, brand name, obsession with quality and technical knowledge to the regional level." In this way, Smith has helped cobble together a coherent and consistent strategy for the disparate FSN cable empire. The look, say, for baseball coverage is the same for a weekday Dodger game on Fox Sports West as it is for a Saturday afternoon tilt between the Red Sox and Yankees on Fox Broadcasting--the Fox Box (score and game-situation graphic in the corner of the screen), radar gun (to chart pitch speeds) and Pitch by Pitch (graphic that shows how a pitcher works a batter) can be found in both places. Smith's "strong national programming" features a daily work in progress.

"Fox Sports News is our franchise show," he says about the ESPN SportsCenter-like program that highlights the day's happenings. "In the coordination room in L.A., three or four producers integrate each night's events and games over the course of five hours," Smith says. "The news goes live to every time zone, and it's regionalized [to fit the audience]." For instance: The Knicks may be the lead story on Fox Sports New York at 10 p.m. EST, but three hours later, the Lakers run first when Fox Sports West joins in, with the Knicks falling to third. A living entity airing 10 p.m. to midnight in every time zone, Fox Sports News changes before the viewer's eyes.

Smith's career has metamorphosed more than a character in a Franz Kafka novel. Raised in Montreal, he became "totally absorbed" by televisionand fascinated by the entertainment business at an early age. A child actor, he performed in TV commercials, worked as a radio deejay and even appeared in a film (Pinball Summer). Like most Canadian youngsters, he played ice hockey, as well as football and golf. But "my love is television," he insists. "I'm a TV junkie first, sports fan second."

After receiving a bachelor's degree in radio and television from Toronto's Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in 1982, Smith found work with the Canadian Broadcasting Co., producing the network's prime-time Summer and Winter Olympics coverage in the 1980s. His work for the Canadian Football League featured new game looks through graphics and animation and integrated halftime magazine shows. As head of sports for the CBC, he rejuvenated the net's programming lineup by securing the rights to a number of different events, including the 1992 Winter Olympics, Indy auto racing and world figure skating.

Joining Dick Clark Productions as senior vice president, television programming in 1990, he produced The Cable ACE Awards. He also developed entertainment programming for both broadcast and cable television, including The American Great 18 Golf Championship, When Stars Were Kids and The USA Music Awards. A short stint at MCA TV allowed Smith to develop a number of first-run network specials and projects for syndication.

Then along came a tempting offer: the chance to program a fledgling cable sports entity. "I didn't know if I wanted to go back to sports, but I sure was impressed with Fox," he says. That was November 1996, and Smith has never looked back.

From the start, he pushed for original programming such as Hardcore Football, a weekly NFL roundtable; the Emmynominated NFL Total Access, a behind-the-scenes look at professional football; The Last Word, a nightly bicoastal sports debate show; and Smith's baby, the weekly sports magazine Goin' Deep, hosted by sportscaster Joe Buck. A hybrid of Entertainment Tonight and ESPN's Outside the Lines, Goin ' Deep mixes sports entertainment news with hard-hitting investigative reporting. "Recently, we've taken on issues such as the rise of religion in the locker room, the increase of concussive injuries in contact sports and [the pros and cons of] aluminum bats in baseball," says Smith. "With our original programming, with shows like Goin' Deep, we're trying to get the hardcore fans to tune in. We don't let up when the home team isn't playing."