Live Blogging Friday NASCAR TV

Before we update Friday NASCAR TV, here are some recent Twitter messages from Wendy Venturini of SPEED:

It's difficult to keep the good news in any longer. We want to be the first to share with all of you...Jarrad & I are expecting a baby! Add to that, it's a BOY!! Our lil guy is due to arrive December 27...just as planned for the off-season! I'll be off camera Homestead to Daytona, but not a single NASCAR Raceday will be missed! Be prepared to watch my baby bump grow! Thanks!

Congrats to Wendy and Jarrad!

This is another split weekend with the Nationwide Series racing in Kentucky while the Camping World Trucks and the Sprint Cup Series are at the Michigan International Speedway. The ARCA Series will also race at MIS.

SPEED begins coverage at 11AM ET with NASCAR Live. John Roberts has Randy Pemberton on the panel while Bob Dillner and Wendy Venturini will be reporting.

The TNT crew is up next on SPEED as they call the early Sprint Cup Series practice. Adam Alexander, Kyle Petty and Wally Dallenbach Jr. will be in the TV booth. Roberts comes back with another edition of NASCAR Live after the practice.

At 3:30PM, SPEED will be joining Cup qualifying in progress after the F-1 practice is over in Montreal. Carrying the live F-1 show is a part of the SPEED TV contract. SPEED will re-air the qualifying coverage in full at 10PM ET.

The ARCA race is up next at 5PM from MIS. Rick Allen and Phil Parsons call the action with Wendy Venturini and Jim Tretow on pit road. ESPN2 makes its only motorsports contribution of the day with a version of NASCAR Now at 6PM hosted by Nicole Briscoe.

Darrell Waltrip is back on SPEED this weekend and he joins the Trackside gang on Friday night at 8PM. Elliott Sadler sits this one out. With the 24 Hours of LeMans being carried on Saturday and Sunday, the NASCAR Performance program hosted by Larry McReynolds will air at 9PM Friday night on SPEED.

We would like your comments as you watch these programs on Friday. To add your TV-related opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

Eldora Charity Race Scores Again

Wednesday night brought Tony Stewart's annual Prelude to the Dream charity race run at the Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, OH.

Let's talk about some topics that were raised before the event. It was shown in SD because the HD television equipment is just too expensive for this type of one-time charity event. The event was offered on pay-per-view on both cable and satellite dish.

The event is not currently scheduled to re-air on SPEED, but perhaps there will be some information released a bit later that might reveal that the show will be seen again. Getting the fans to the PPV live event was the original idea.

This Wednesday night show raises money for several charities. Click here for more details on the charities involved and the list of sponsors. The TV people who work on this event also donated their time. Marty Reid joined Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds in the booth. Dick Berggren and Matt Yocum worked in the garage area.

This is a fun event and Hendrick crew chief Steve Letarte was trying his hand at pit reporting. This was a nice opportunity for fans to see a very different side of Letarte that was not tied to Jeff Gordon's NASCAR issues.

Racing on dirt is an interesting experience for TV viewers. Even the concept of heat races is new to some NASCAR fans. It was nice to see once again camera views that showed this type of racing to fans in a positive way. Perhaps, that might translate to some folks checking out the local short track in their area this summer.

If you watched this event, how about some comments. What would you like to see added to the program in the future and how did you enjoy it? To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.

TNT Numbers Show Promising Start (Updated)

The six summer races on TNT might go by quickly, but this tech-savvy group usually leaves behind some lasting impressions. Apparently, despite the fact that Pocono is not perhaps the most exciting racetrack, the TNT television coverage and website applications started off with a bang.

Here is the TV data:

According to Nielsen Fast Nationals, TNT’s race coverage delivered a 3.3 US rating and 5,344,000 Total Viewers, becoming the #1 program of the day on ad-supported cable in Households, Total Viewers, Adults 25-54, Men 18-49 and Men 25-54.

TNT’s Sprint Cup Series racing from Pocono delivered more households (3,778,000) than the Stanley Cup Finals on NBC (3,750,000) and MTV Movie Awards (3,274,000)

The more detailed rating specifics will be out later this week, but that certainly brings a little positive news to NASCAR's TV struggles.

A big part of the overall Turner appeal was that the online applications were available to all users for free on Sunday. RaceBuddy, Raceview and Trackpass are all accessed through the NASCAR.com website.

Here are the online numbers during the Pocono race:

NASCAR.COM had over one million unique visitors, an increase of +13% vs. the Pocono race in 2009.

The site received about 7.4 million page views, an increase of +25% vs. the 2009 race at Pocono.

There were 1.5 million visits to the site which is an increase of 16% vs. the 2009 Pocono race.

Total video streams on Sunday (on demand + live) were up 227% YOY to 724,000 streams including the 2010 debut of RaceBuddy, a multiplatform experience which features four camera angles and a mosaic view.

As we have discussed many times, perhaps the biggest hole in Sprint Cup Series exposure is the fact that the pre-race, live race and post-race coverage already done by the existing TV partners is not made available for streaming to desktop and laptop computers. The closest fans can come are the four cameras offered by RaceBuddy. Even the paid NASCAR.com applications have no video features.

When the Turner folks say video streaming was up over two hundred percent, what that really reflects is the rapidly changing demand for online technology and the fact that NASCAR continues to fundamentally fail in this area.

Think about it. We just finished the entire NASCAR on FOX portion of the season without any online video. A feeble attempt late in the season by FOX to provide online post-race video coverage only came after bad national reviews.

Once TNT is done, there are no plans for ESPN to continue RaceBuddy or work with the online rights holder (Turner Sports) to make any additional video content available online. Five races until the online curtain falls yet again for the season.

In today's on demand world, there is simply no excuse for NASCAR, Turner Sports and the NASCAR TV partners not to hammer out an agreement to serve the fans. It should only take ESPN one shining moment to remember what the NFL regular season did to NASCAR on TV last year. RaceBuddy should be the immediate response.

Update: The extended ratings information is out and reveals a slight drop in total number of viewers vs. last season. Targets like men, age groups and cable competition remained the same.

Here is the information from Scene Daily:

TNT averaged a 3.1 final U.S. rating for the Gillette Fusion ProGlide 500 Sunday at Pocono Raceway, down 8.8 percent from the 3.4 national rating a year ago, according to Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Daily.

The race drew 3.614 million households on TNT on the same day as the NBA Finals on ABC (which drew 10.545 million households), the NHL Stanley Cup Finals on NBC (3.75 million) and the MTV Movie Awards (3.274 million), according to the SBD figures from Nielsen.

The race, which delayed by one and forty minutes due to rain, was Sunday’s top telecast on cable among men 18-49 and 25-54.

We welcome your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.