A few years ago, MyYTV was so desperate for original programming that it actually invited me to appear on one of its shows.

The upstart channel eventually recovered and has come a long way since then — an evolution that continues this fall with the addition of the “High School Football Game of the Week,” which previously aired on Fox 17/62.

The major reason for the move was the start time. In previous years, the games started anywhere from 10:30 p.m. to 11:30, depending on Fox programming. Now, the games start at 10.

“People had continually asked us if we could put the games on earlier,” said John Amann, the station’s director of promotions and productions. “Fox is the No. 1 network for ages 18-49 [the prime advertising demographic] so it was tough to pre-empt some of the programming for sports. The MyYTV schedule is more flexible.”

To wit: The scheduled lead-in for Friday’s Sharon-Farrell game is “Jaws.” (“Jaws 2” airs on Saturday night.) Amann said WWE Smackdown will eventually be the lead-in, which is a good fit since the audience for both shows skews younger.

MyYTV has emerged as the home for area sports, with the channel airing YSU football and basketball games, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers preseason games, a handful of Cleveland Indians games and a few Mahoning Valley Scrappers games.

The only drawback is not all area viewers have access to the channel.

MyYTV is free to non-cable subscribers on channel 33.2, but you must have a digital receiver to get it. You can also see it on channel 13 on Armstrong Cable (which services most of Mahoning County), channel 3 on Comcast and channel 373 on Time Warner’s digital cable. If you have Dish Network, you have to hook up an antenna to get it.

The broadcast itself hasn’t changed. Play-by-play announcer Chad Krispinsky and analyst Ralph Sandy (also known as “those guys who take up all the space in the press box”) are together for the fourth straight year. This is the seventh year overall for the broadcast.

“I think it’s a really good concept,” Krispinsky said of the channel. “They’re putting stuff on there that people care about and they’re building it up.”

There are no plans to show games live since most schools worry a live broadcast would cut into the gate.

“We’re open to doing games live if that was something schools wanted us to do,” Amann said.

If you miss a broadcast, if you don’t get the channel or you’d just like a copy of the game for your collection, you can order DVDs for $40 by visiting www.wytv.com/links and clicking on “Directions for ordering a newscast from WYTV/MyYTV.”

And if you don’t get the channel on your cable network, give it a call and ask them to add it. And if they tell you they’d have to drop a channel first, suggest they get rid of Bravo, which is completely devoid of quality programming.

More football, less Bravo. That’s something we can all get behind.

Talking playoffs

If your team is 0-1 and has playoff hopes, be careful this week. Of the 192 teams that made the playoffs last year, only seven started the season 0-2.

Only two (Dover and Monroeville) started 0-3 and made it. No team that started 0-4 made last year’s postseason.

Streaking

The area’s two longest regular season win streaks came to an end last week when South Range (34 games) lost to Massillon Tuslaw and Mooney (19 games) fell to Mentor.

Howland now holds the area’s best streak at 11 games. Chaney and East Liverpool have the longest losing streaks, each at 11 games. The two teams play each other on Sept. 13.

Quote of the week

From Western Reserve coach Mike Kopachy, on officials huddling to confirm that his Blue Devils had stopped Mathews running back Brent Jackson on a two-point converstion try with 33 seconds left to secure a 28-27 victory:

“I don’t know what the big hoo-ha was, but I’m glad we made the stop.”

Hoo-ha?

X Joe Scalzo covers high school football for The Vindicator. Write him at scalzo@vindy.com.