A network on the brink.(Entertainment and Sports Programming Network to diversify its format)(Brief Article)

Remote controls sure don't get you where they used to. Remember how we used to click on The Weather Channel for weather recaps and forecasts? TNN for country music? MTV for music videos? TBS for the Atlanta Braves?

Did somebody say, "Remember when we used to click on ESPN for sports?"

At the networks July previews in Los Angeles, ESPN ponied up its Original Entertainment unit, which produced the award-winning SportsCentury, The Life and 2-Minute Drill and is busily manufacturing a new prime-time lineup: movies, soap operas, reality and game shows. Ruh-roh.

To diversify, the artists currently known as The Worldwide Leader In Sports are investing $25 million--or, what a single Sunday of NFL programming costs. "We're taking a risk, but we think it's necessary in this environment" says Mark Shapiro, Original's whiz-kid vice president, addressing declining ratings of same old, same old sports. "And we want to have some fun."

So get ready for World's Sexiest Athletes, an upcoming special counting down the top 10 male and female hotties determined by voting at ESPN's dot-com and magazine. More fun than HBO's Real Sex 47!

OK, you won't see ESPN's inaugural movie on Lifetime. A Season on the Brink, premieres during March Madness, though adapting the language in John Feinstein's 1986 book on Bob Knight might draw ESPN its first TV-MA rating.

A "soapumentary," The D League, is "24-hour surveillance" of players in the NBA's developmental league, even ...