Friday Poll: How did we like the new announcers?

As FSG gets entrenched as owners, it’s a time of change for Penguin TV broadcasts

The ongoing collapse with the business model for regional sports networks is a reality that almost all major sports leagues, teams, and consumers have to deal with changes.

Part of those changes hit Pittsburgh with the AT&T Sportsnet Pittsburgh channel going the way of the dodo bird, replaced by a channel owned by the Penguins that was simply dubbed Sportsnet Pittsburgh.

The new operation opted to change the look and feel of the broadcasts (which tended to rank in the lower quartile from Pens’ fans and league-wide observers alike) most noticeably by going with new broadcasters. Josh Getzoff got promoted from the team’s radio feed into being to the full time play-by-play announcer in 2023-24. Former pxp Steve Mears was sent to the team’s radio broadcast.

The TV broadcast rotated a trio of former players (Colby Armstrong, Phil Bourque, Mike Rupp) to replace long-time former color analyst Bob Errey. Dan Potash was moved from his long-time rink reporter role into the lead studio spot (though he did handle a couple of games in his former position), replaced by new hire Hailey Hunter who handled the majority of the rinkside reporter duties.

There were more changes beyond the personnel, the Sportsnet Pittsburgh station adopted a graphic style identical to its sister channel of NESN with scorebugs, graphics and different inlays throughout the broadcast. In-program advertisements and graphics were super-imposed on the ice at times and on the boards throughout the gameplay, like every local and national channel these days (and to near universal scorn).

To give the channel some free market research, what did we make of these changes? Let’s find out in the Friday Poll.