WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM FOR … TIGER WOODS

Five cable channels, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, Golf Channel and MSNBC carried Tiger Woods’s latest news conference live from the site of the Masters golf tournament in Atlanta on Monday, with numerous local broadcast stations also carrying the feeds of one or another of the cable outlets. Afterwards, most of the stations carried comments from their sports announcers and various experts assessing Woods’s performance. Most agreed that it was an improvement over the one in February. But Golf magazine Executive Editor Eamon Lynch remarked that while Woods seemed “less defensive,” he nevertheless “still sounded as if he was repeating Deepak Chopra’s talking points.” In today’s (Tuesday) Christian Science Monitor, staff writer Mark Sappenfield wrote: “One press conference is not, in itself, a proof of sincerity. But it can be a guidepost. Whether Tiger Woods truly believes — as he said Monday — that, ‘going forward, I need to be a better man,’ will be the test of the rest of his life. But Monday was a good way to start.” Meanwhile, various publications observed that those sponsors who stuck by Woods are likely to benefit from enormous ratings expected for his return to the links on Thursday. Not a few media commentators forecast that if Woods commands early competition, the weekend telecasts could attract Super Bowl-sized audiences.