NASCAR's After School Special

After no NASCAR Now program on ESPN2 Wednesday, a stellar show aired on Thursday. Addressing the move by Penske to Ford and all the dynamics associated with that topic was the theme. In addition, the penalties to the #48 team were discussed since there was no program produced on Wednesday.

Once again, the Thursday program aired at 3PM ET and did not re-air. Lost in TV space were Ray Evernham, Ricky Craven and Ryan McGee. This trio covered a lot of ground and brought a wealth of experience to the key NASCAR topics they addressed on the Thursday show.

For a wide variety of reasons, ESPN has decided this year to continue to bury NASCAR Now at 3PM ET and pretend nothing is wrong. Well, something certainly is. Either ESPN is in or out where NASCAR is concerned. Despite the spin, the Afternoon Special is alive and well and living on ESPN2.

The column excerpt below (with original reader comments) is a repost from September of 2011 when ESPN suddenly decided to make a very drastic change to a series that involves ESPN core programming and a sport called NASCAR.

The ABC After School Special aired in one form or another from 1972 to 1996. That is a picture of the original TV title card for the series. The ABC programmers used a unique approach to get teens to watch shows about inspirational topics. They made the late afternoon timeslot special. It was an hour just for kids. In twenty-five years, the ABC After School Special won 51 Daytime Emmy Awards.

This week there will be some significant changes to the ESPN2 line-up. The programmers have decided to expand on the success of the afternoon Sports Nation show. Beginning Monday, 3:30 to 6PM ET weekdays on ESPN2 will feature nothing but talk shows. It's ESPN's version of the after school special.

You may remember Charissa Thompson as the co-host of Michael Waltrip's ill-fated amateur talent show on SPEED. Thompson has now moved to ESPN and will co-host the new 3:30PM program called Numbers Never Lie. ESPN's description of the show is "a lively roundtable debate pitting the wisdom of former professional athletes against the pragmatism of statisticians."

At 4PM will be another new show called Dan Le Batard Is Highly Questionable. The Miami-based Le Batard is well known to ESPN viewers. This 30 minute show will present Le Batard's views on sports topics of the day. Included in the program will be frequent appearances by his 72 year-old Cuban-American father, Gonzalo.

Next at 4:30PM will be TV veteran Jim Rome with his Rome is Burning show. Hard-edged and feisty, Rome is the bad cop to Le Batard's good cop. Rome's better days might be behind him, but he still is the king of sports smack-talk and seems to enjoy pushing the buttons of professional athletes.

The reason for all these changes is the Sports Nation show. Moved into the 5PM timeslot because of its ratings demo with teens and young adults, Sports Nation is an hour of classic MTV-style chaos. A pretty girl talks sports just like a boy while she shows lots of funny videos. The show also features Colin Cowherd.

This change has moved the daily shows that featured actual sports themes to different ESPN networks and timeslots. One of those programs is NASCAR Now. Since 2007, the show has been airing at 5PM Eastern with a West Coast re-air for Pacific time zone viewers. Those days have now ended.

The legacy of NASCAR Now is that starting Monday it gets stuck at the beginning of the new ESPN2 after school programming bundle. Also eliminated is any type of regular re-airing of the show at a later time for West Coast viewers.

According to the Nielsen company, the country has right around 100 million homes that have cable TV or home satellite service. Less than half of those homes have a digital video recorder (DVR). Moving NASCAR Now to 3PM Eastern with no additional airing is going to eliminate a significant number of households from viewing the series.

In the heart of the season and with the Chase storylines just starting to develop, NASCAR has taken a major blow in exposure from its largest TV partner. NASCAR Now will also not get a later airing on ESPNEWS and cannot be made available online. Now firmly stuck as the lead-in for an after school block of shows, the NASCAR series we watched ESPN work so hard to develop is headed for no man's land.

Over the years, the 3PM timeslot on ESPN2 has been occupied by a wide variety of TV series. The question is, can you remember the name of even one? Neither can I.

Farewell NASCAR Now, it was nice to know you.

Update: In 2012, the network also elminated the Monday one-hour Rountable show featuring Allen Bestwick. It is now 30 minutes in length with a regular news format.

We invite your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.

Showtime Suspends NASCAR TV Show

It was January of 2010 during the Charlotte Media tour when Michael Waltrip ramped-up the drama a bit before confirming that he was going to join Showtime's new sports TV series called Inside NASCAR.

Waltrip's previous run on a NASCAR talk-show had been pretty impressive. The Monday night show on SPEED had various titles, but always presented an hour of original content and discussion about the sport that had been missing from TV on weekdays. After more than a decade on the air, the network had cancelled the latest version in 2009.

Despite only having about 17 million total pay subscribers, Showtime jumped into NASCAR with both feet. Major cable sports TV networks have over 80 million subscribers, but Showtime wanted to get into the NASCAR business. The sport's own NASCAR Media Group would provide the studio and production for the Charlotte-based show, but there was going to be an even bigger twist.

After years of struggling with Internet, cell phone and Video on Demand issues, Inside NASCAR was going to kick open the door to shared NASCAR TV programming.

This from Sports Business Journal reporter Michael Smith in late January of 2010 updating the original announcement:

"Showtime's new weekly Inside NASCAR show will be available via the Internet and mobile phone, which required clearance from NASCAR's rights holders in that space," reported Smith.

"The NASCAR Media Group, which manages those multimedia rights, had to clear the broadcast of Inside NASCAR with its TV, web and mobile partners before giving final approval for the new show."

Finally, a NASCAR TV series that could skip across all kinds of online and mobile platforms and get directly to the fans. In addition, Showtime said the series would be made available on the Showtime Video On Demand (VOD) channels on cable systems. Any way you sliced it, this was groundbreaking television.

It made sense, showing this program first to Showtime subscribers on Wednesday nights, then making it available to NASCAR fans via non-traditional platforms for distribution. What a great way to introduce Showtime to potentially new subscribers.

Unfortunately, it didn't take long for something to smell a little fishy. On January 26 of 2010, Showtime answered some questions about the new series. Their answers sounded very different from the original press release put out by NASCAR.

"Showtime Throws NASCAR A Curveball" was the TDP column that followed. Click on the title to read the column.

Via email, a Showtime rep commented on three key topics. First, the series would not be made available via mobile phones. Second, the reason for that was none of the content on Showtime was available by mobile phone. Finally, the only content posted on the Internet would be "teases" of the show. In reality, the only way to see Inside NASCAR was to subscribe to Showtime.

Despite these puzzling developments, the first season of Inside NASCAR went into production. The Wednesday night shows were played to the small number of Showtime subscribers nationwide who cared to watch sports.

After only one season of producing a high-end weekly hour of NASCAR TV, the network sliced the program to thirty minutes in 2011. It was clear that the return on the significant financial investment needed to produce this caliber of show was not working.

Last night, Showtime aired a one hour special Inside NASCAR focusing on the Daytona 500. This was the kick-off episode of season three. Showtime's PR release talked about the wonderful Daytona 500 and promoted exclusive scanner audio of Juan Montoya right before his fiery accident. But there were also some other words in the release.

"Regular weekly episodes will return in early September, the week before the final Race to the Chase event at Richmond International Speedway."

After only two full seasons, Showtime has suspended the Inside NASCAR show with a promise to return in six months. This is the same company that promised mobile phone distribution, Internet streaming and VOD availability of the very same product.

If Showtime decides to opt out completely after this season, the possibility exists that the NASCAR Media Group could shop this series to a national cable sports network. Currently, the NBC Cable Sports Network (the former VERSUS), the new CBS Sports Network (formerly CBS College Sports Net) and Discovery's Velocity network are actively seeking sports programming.

In the meantime, NASCAR fans who took the original advice of Showtime and subscribed to the service to see Inside NASCAR on Wednesdays in racing season are left in a lurch. This year, Showtime is one and done with NASCAR and has posted a "We will return in September" sign on the door.

Unfortunately, the network's track record of fulfilling promises where NASCAR fans are concerned is a little bit short of satisfactory.

We welcome your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.

Daugherty's Social Media Smackdown

When things get weird at Daytona, they get really weird. The height of the weirdness was Juan Montoya hitting a jet dryer on the track and igniting a fire that blazed spectacularly on TV. After it was extinguished, it took track workers over two hours to clean up the mess.

Meanwhile, right in the middle of hosting TDP's live stream on Twitter, I happened to see a picture link pop-up. It was a picture from Brad Keselowski. It was a view from the backstretch. As he had done during practice and Speedweeks, Keselowski had kept his cell phone in his car. He was now tweeting with fans during the red flag.

The NASCAR on FOX team was completely out of things to talk about and dispatched reporter Matt Yocum to the backstretch. After some race talk, the topic of discussion turned to social media and specifically, Twitter.

Keselowski continued to snap pictures of the other drivers, the fire scene and even the TV folks. He continued to chat with fans, post his pictures and tell Yocum about his Twitter activities. Suddenly, social media and NASCAR were front and center on a broadcast TV network in primetime.

"NASCAR Leading Social Media Revolution" was a TDP column from last week. We spoke about the sport's transition from completely shutting out direct contact with fans to embracing the fact that social media is going to play a key role in setting NASCAR's future course. Click on the title to read the column.

As various FOX announcers spoke about their own Twitter accounts and how much fun it was to interact with fans, a funny thing started to happen. Keselowski's follower numbers on Twitter began to rise. At first it was hundreds, then thousands and then tens of thousands of people going to Twitter to see what Keselowski was sending.

By the end of the night, his Twitter account had grown by some 200 thousand people. In addition, other NASCAR-related Twitter users found their follower numbers going up quickly. TV had once again accidentally served as a platform for social media growth. All it took was an accident, fire and red flag.

"How Twitter Took Over NASCAR" was a subsequent post on the popular Jalopnik.com website. Detailed in the story is the unusual synergy between race fans and the drivers and teams on Twitter. Instead of following the stereotype, NASCAR fans are proving to be sophisticated users of social media. Click on the title to read the story.

While the issue of Keselowski having a "recording device" in his car was raised after the race, NASCAR VP of Operations Steve O'Donnell waved that possibility off and praised Keselowski for his fan interaction and outreach. O'Donnell passed along that information on his Twitter account.

Tuesday afternoon ESPN analyst Brad Daugherty appeared with host Allen Bestwick on the NASCAR Now program on ESPN2. Daugherty is one of a host of analysts and reporters that rotate through as "experts" on the TV series. The talk of this day was Keselowski and his foray into tweeting during the red flag.

Here are Daugherty's comments in full:

Bestwick: "Do you fine or not fine Brad K (for having a recording device and using it during the race)?"

Daugherty: "You definitely fine Brad K, I have had it with the social media stuff. This is ridiculous. You are in the race car. You are a professional race car driver. I don't know why you would have your cell phone with you in the first place other than to just take advantage of an opportunity to do something like this."

"There is no place for this in professional sports when you are the athlete. His focus is to be in that race car 100% focused on trying to win the race. This social media stuff, especially something like this, I just think it is inappropriate and there is no room for that."

I sent Daugherty's comments along on Twitter and the responses were varied. While many thought he was just not informed on the subject, others suggested that his background as an NBA athlete, not as a driver, was to blame for his views.

While Daugherty has the absolute right to his opinion, Keselowski's Twitter exploits were sent all over the Internet in stories on all types of websites. The Daytona weirdness may have finally pushed the mainstream door to social media acceptance wide open.

We have been active on Twitter for several years, recently moved our live race TV chat to that service and found it to be a vital link for NASCAR fans. We welcome your comments on Keselowski, NASCAR and social media.

To add your opinion, just click the comments button below. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.