HBO confirmed rumors about “Joe Buck Live” remaining on its schedule. It’s not. The show has been canceled. 
The network’s President of Sports Programming, Ross Greenburg said this: “Joe Buck is one of the premier broadcasters in our industry. We have made the decision not to continue his talk show and wish him all the best and continued success with his wide array of responsibilities at Fox Sports.”
The program only aired three times but it will forever be remembered for the inaugural show on which comic Artie Lange appeared. Lange took the temperature in the room, thought the show was lagging, which it was and opened up his unique four-letter take on everything and anything.
It stunned Buck who never recovered from being surprised by the turn of events on his stage. He had no way of controlling Lange who is best known for his riffs and profanity dominated comedic material on the Howard Stern radio program.
While Lange and Buck later spoke and cleared the air between them, Buck’s show never was viewed in the same way. When a revised format was rolled out for the second show, some three months later, it never became more than another sports talk show featuring the usual suspects.
The truth is that the original show’s attempt at opening up the dialogue with unique guests and letting things fly was the only reason to watch the show. “Joe Buck Live” peaked with the Lange appearance. His performance became a youtube.com sensation and dominated radio talk shows for days whether they were sports oriented or not.
Joe Buck on the cancellation:
“HBO told me early this week that the network was steering away from talk shows going forward. That’s bad news when you have a talk show. It was a great opportunity and I enjoyed every minute of it. Yes, even those minutes in the first show.”
Whether another network wants to try a new version of a Joe Buck talk show remains to be seen
Re-printed with permission of the author.
Paula Duffy is a national sports columnist for Examiner.com and the Huffington Post and regularly comments on sports/legal matters for radio affiliates of ESPN and Fox Sports. She founded the sports information site, Incidental Contact, is the author of a line of audio books designed for sports novices and in her spare time practices law in Los Angeles.
Copyright ©2010 Sports Climax™