By Steve Kabelowsky Contributing Columnist Published Sep 25, 2012 at 1:01 PM

In sports, I like to think that those of us who back the "hometown" teams are pretty spoiled.

We've had a surging baseball team, the Badgers, Panthers and Golden Eagles have been competitive, and there's the Green and Gold. The better these teams do, the more our expectations seem to rise.

Without getting all hooh-ra-ra here, we in Milwaukee – and all of southeastern Wisconsin in particular – love to watch our teams on TV.

Out of all of them though, NFL football reigns supreme. It will be interesting to see, according to the ratings, how many households watched the Packers take on the Seahawks on WISN-TV Ch. 12 or ESPN last night.

But late last week, NFL fans had something else to cheer. The NFL Network and Time Warner Cable reached an agreement, adding the channel to the cable provider's digital tier.

"We're delighted to have reached an agreement for NFL Network and NFL RedZone that provides a good value to our customers," Melinda Witmer, executive vice president and chief video and content officer for Time Warner Cable, said in a statement. "The additional games this year and the proven appeal of NFL RedZone will certainly prove to be a draw for our customers. We look forward to a long and productive relationship with the NFL."

Time Warner Cable is the largest cable service in the Milwaukee market, and an agreement like this has to be great news to football lovers. Even though the majority of Packers fans would not watch many games with other teams, a good percentage do. And the NFL Network is hopeful that Green and Gold nation will tune in for its programming.

SPEAKING OF FOOTBALL: Monday's game displaced two season premieres on ABC. If you missed the delayed presentation of "Dancing With The Stars: All Stars" at 1:37 a.m. Tuesday, you can watch the episode on the ABC video viewer at WISN.com. By mid-day Tuesday, "Castle" will be available online, or you can catch the airing at 1 p.m. Saturday on Ch. 12.

MORE FALCONIO: If you listen to Brewers or Packers coverage on the weekends on 620 WTMJ-AM, then you've heard Jeff Falconio on "Brewers Extra Innings" or "Packers O.T." Now, you'll hear more from him as he joins the station in a new full-time role. Starting in October, he'll be Greg Matzek's permanent co-host on "Sports Central" on weeknights. He takes the chair from Trenni Kusnierek, who recently left the station for a job with Comcast Sports Net in Boston.

"I'm very excited for this opportunity and am looking forward to my expanded role," Falconio said. "I've always had a passion for sports, in fact I'm kind of a sports geek. Getting a chance to cover the sports that I love as my full-time job is truly the realization of a life-long dream. I am also thrilled to again be paired with Greg, who I have always enjoyed working with in the past."

BETTER THAN BEFORE: With Jimmy Kimmel at the helm of the Emmys broadcast Sunday night, the show brought in 13.2 million viewers. That's one million more than the broadcast got last year.

Steve Kabelowsky Contributing Columnist

Media is bombarding us everywhere.

Instead of sheltering his brain from the onslaught, Steve embraces the news stories, entertainment, billboards, blogs, talk shows and everything in between.

The former writer, editor and producer in TV, radio, Web and newspapers, will be talking about what media does in our community and how it shapes who we are and what we do.