COLUMN: These days, networks cater to rural viewers

From Josh Callahan's, "Under Construction," Fall '99 From Josh Callahan's, "Under Construction," Fall '99Admit it. You couldn't help but watch. You sat there with the remote control, promising that you would turn the damn thing off at the next commercial. Instead, your eyes stayed fixed on the screen as you continued to munch chips and spill Coke on your shirt. Which begs two questions: Why would anyone pay these backwoods people $600,000 to catch a freakin' fish and where do I sign up? Fox -- already home to Cops and the Hill family -- made another effort to attract the hick and redneck audience on Sunday with its 90-minute live broadcast of the final minutes of the four-day competition. Viewers were treated to announcer Joe Buck introducing this "Big Bass Battle" and bass pioneer Forrest L. Wood and his huge cowboy hat talking about the various techniques involved in casting a fishing line. A barrage of cameramen on land, boats and in helicopters worked non-stop to bring you the latest action from out on the lakes of Cypress Gardens, Fla. Not since Saturday Night Live debuted the "Bassomatic" in its classic sketch has the lake-dwelling fish captured such a large TV following. Fox even dove into the history troves to pull up a quote from former President Herbert Hoover, "All men are equal before fish." "Before fish" maybe, but rural citizens certainly aren't given equal respect before society or the media in this country. As a Simpsons episode aired on Fox just 90 minutes later showed, farm life is still the endless butt of jokes. The NAACP makes a big deal of making TV reflect the racial diversity of our population, but there isn't an equivalent group demanding to see another minority -- non-urban communities -- on TV. Regionalism is as acceptable now as racism was a half-century ago. In our urban environments around the country, filled with bricks and concrete and cynical people, large sections of this country are written off as being irrelevant. Economics may be finally changing that attitude. Fox and the dozen major corporations who sponsored this weekend's fun are starting to realize that making TV look like America can pay off. If all goes according to plan, the $3.4 million in prize money will pay for itself many times over in future returns. It is, after all, hard to write off a market as irrelevant when it contains 55 million people -- the estimated number of bass fishers in the U.S. While some of us sit in our living rooms and mock guys named "Jerry" and "Denny," others are realizing the benefits of reaching out to this untapped market. Wheaties put "Denny" [Brauer] on the cover of its cereal box and "Jerry" walked away from the weekend with $150,000. The biggest winner of all -- Darrell Robertson of Jay, Okla. -- walked off the winner's platform with a check for $600,000 in exchange for five bass weighing a combined 10 pounds, six ounces. Fishing isn't even Robertson's profession; he's a cattle rancher by trade. Bass fishing is the latest attempt to reach out to the market that NASCAR has played to so successfully. Today, NASCAR is one of sport's hottest properties, broadcast weekly and even in prime-time on national TV. Over the next few years, NASCAR may turn out to be just the first of a long string of successful products that got its start by marketing to a non-urban, not-wealthy crowd. The NASCAR mania is now even spreading to the self-styled fashion elite, with sales of the colorful patchwork racing jackets of stars like Jeff Gordon and Dale Jarrett becoming a hot urban item. Bass fishing may not be far behind. There is a pro tour of bass fishers, with winners' checks easily topping $100,000 -- not to mention the sponsorship money each of the top anglers receives. Bass fishing's success is the latest challenge to the sustained viability of hick-baiting television. The tournament pulled an estimated 2.5 rating, far above those for hockey games. That means sponsor dollars and mainstream credibility are only likely to increase for the sport. Of course, if bass fishing fails to build on its first network appearance, then it will go the way of the Bassomatic and fall into the endless pit of Letterman jokes and sports bloopers. Either way, for one day at least the bass got a national platform to show that they know best. One of the anglers, Jimmy Davis Jr., of Willard, Mo., summed it up best. "The fish don't discriminate."