'Twas The Night Before Tweetmas

'Twas the night before Tweetmas and all over my phone, not a creature was stirring, not even @TheOrangeCone.

@keselowski and @AJDinger were snug in their beds, while visions of tandem-racing danced in their heads. @Danica in her @GoDaddy t-shirt and I in my @SpeedFreaks cap had just settled in for a @NationwideNNS nap.

When from the #FanZone there arose such a clatter, I ran to @Twitter to see what was the matter. Then to @DirecTV I flew like a flash, clicked on @SPEED but there was nothing but trash!

The glow of my trusty @Sprint EVO phone, gave the luster of #MuscoLighting to objects that shone. When, what to my squinting eyes should appear, but a @safetykleen truck and eight very healthy reindeer.

The driver had a cigar so thick, I knew right away that it wasn't St. Nick. More rapid than @AllWaltrip, his orders they came and he whistled and shouted and called them all by name.

Now Herman! Now Matty! Now Byrnsie and Rick! On Hermie! On X-ray! On Ralph and Dr. Dick! To the top of the ratings, to the top of the heap! Now dash away quick because I need some sleep!

And then, in a twinkling, I heard out the door lots of laughing and yelling that made quite the roar. As I drew in my head and was turning around, through the front door he came right in with a bound.

He was dressed @SPEED casual despite all the racket and his clothes were neat, even the @Mens_Wearhouse suit jacket. A bundle of SWAG he had flung on his back and he looked like @TheChrisMadigan when opening his pack.

His eyes were glazed, his stare not too clear. He smelled like a combo of @Macanudos and @CoorsBeer. His sizable smirk made quite the glint, but the hair on his head had a questionable tint.

The stump of his cigar he held tight in his teeth and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a round face and a little round belly that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He spoke not a word but went straight to his work, put a gift in my stocking then stood up with a jerk. He laughed like a madman and made for the door, his task was complete, there was nothing more.

As he jumped in the truck, he let out a howl. What I found in my stocking...my own crying towel. But I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight.

Merry Tweetmass to all and to all a good night!

Your NASCAR TV Christmas Wish

Not everyone can have their own Rusty Wallace tree ornament. So, for those of you who are still in the Christmas spirit we have a little challenge.

If you had one wish to change any part of the NASCAR TV world, what would it be?

This sport is huge on television. All three pro series, qualifying sessions and even practice is shown live. ESPN has over 25 NASCAR TV personalities, FOX and SPEED have even more and TNT still hasn't replaced Lindsay Czarniak.

There have been animated rodents, colored draft trackers and some of the worst musical selections on the planet in the live race telecasts. One network has ten announcers for one race and yet another tops that with eleven.

Let's not forget the battle of the Tech Garage vs the TNT cutaway car vs. Jeff Hammond pointing at stuff. We also have Infield Pit Studios, a Hollywood Hotel and a rotating infield rig.

We have six lines of graphics on the screen at the same time, colors so weird you can't read the driver names and fake pylons inserted on pit road. We see only two cars in the race and after four hours, we only see one finish.

We have ladies married to NASCAR guys, fellows who own NASCAR teams and pit reporters who might really rather be at an IndyCar race. We have Nationwide Series drivers as studio analysts for Sprint Cup Series races and TV roundtables featuring drivers who were actually in the race being discussed.

Across the ten months and thousands of hours of television there has got to be something that you really want to change and have a good reason for changing it. Let us know what that is by clicking the comments button below.

Thanks for stopping by The Daly Planet in the off-season!

Wednesday: TV/Media Question And Answer Session

It's been a whirlwind off-season for the NASCAR TV and media folks. We have also raised some new topics that have been hotly debated since the season ended.

Here are some items of interest. Feel free to add your opinions and questions in the comments section of this post. All questions will be answered ASAP with some help from our friends in the media.

SPEED will resume NASCAR TV with Daytona testing in mid-January. We are being told that the RaceHub series will return in the last week of January, but no time has been passed along.

The network has a new interim president named Scott Ackerson. A TV production veteran, Ackerson gets SPEED without Patti Wheeler present and is said to have been meeting with various staff members to get a feeling for the network's issues.

Sports Business Journal reporters John Ourand and Tripp Mickle published a story that NASCAR is going to buy back its digital (online) rights from Turner Sports. This move is said to be completed for the 2013 season and will reportedly cost over 25 million dollars.

NBC announced that the Super Bowl will be streamed online for the first time this year. NASCAR and FOX Sports continue to be at odds over any potential streaming of the Daytona 500. In the next TV contract, look for online streaming of live content to be a key element.

NASCAR's official satellite radio partner is SiriusXM. NASCAR owning digital rights could swing the door open to making the weekday NASCAR shows available on smart phone, tablets and laptops via streaming. How that deal would work is still up in the air.

Several veteran journalists have raised the issue of just how much reporting and healthy debate about issues in the sport will go on in 2013 if NASCAR itself is running the NASCAR.com website from its HQ in Charlotte, NC.

Right now NASCAR has a digital chief, a marketing/PR chief and a VP dedicated to television operations. It will be up to these three players to craft a working agreement on how to most effectively cover the sport 24/7 online beginning in just one more year.

Michael Waltrip has been very active online during the off-season. This multi-car team owner will soon be moving into the Hollywood Hotel and sitting alongside his older brother Darrell for the NASCAR on FOX coverage. Waltrip will also retain his duties with SPEED as an analyst for the truck series.

The debate has already begun about how an active owner is going to offer analysis on teams, drivers and incidents in a series in which he has a major financial stake. Issues arise that require strong opinions and Waltrip is going to be facing a new situation where it's not going to be hard for fans of drivers to wave the conflict of interest flag when they are called out on TV.

ESPN has been silent on the future of Marty Reid. He was removed from the Sprint Cup Series telecasts on the network in the week before the first race. While he handles duties on the Nationwide Series telecasts down the stretch, ESPN does not cover the Sprint Cup Series until July. Since Allen Bestwick moved into the Lead Announcer role, we should find out what Reid is going to be doing for ESPN this season shortly.

Finally, the debate that just won't die is the absence of any live studio news programming from SPEED this off-season. Repeats of old shows highlight the primetime schedule even as the NASCAR and the motorsports world in general continue to generate big news stories on almost a daily basis.

The emergence of social media as a key pipeline for this information has made the lack of news programming on SPEED stick out like a sore thumb. Although SPEED threw together one special show after Kurt Busch departed Penske, nothing else has followed during the off-season.

We invite your comments on these topics and your questions on anything related to TV or media in NASCAR or motorsports. We will try to get answers ASAP and invite you to check back during the day on Wednesday as these Q&A sessions usually get rather interesting. Thanks again for stopping by.