Daily TV News Shows Come Of Age

The sports spotlight might have been on the NCAA men's basketball championship game, but NASCAR held its own Monday thanks to two very important TV series that have finally come of age.

ESPN2 has been through all kinds of changes, but has now settled into a very nice rhythm with the daily NASCAR Now program. Allen Bestwick is the usual Monday host, with Mike Massaro and Nicole Briscoe alternating weeks in the studio. All three of these "talent" also travel and report from the field.

While Bestwick was clearly the right host for the one-hour Monday show, the network was slow to figure out just who to surround him with as panelists. These three slots have been filled by a variety of ESPN analysts, NASCAR personalities and one-hit wonders like Geoff Bodine over the last few seasons.

Emerging from the wreckage has been the singular presence of Ricky Craven. This season with Ray Evernham's surprise departure, Craven has been put front-and-center on the big Monday show and on the racing weekends. He has emerged as ESPN's top NASCAR studio analyst.

Monday, Craven joined two faces that were new to the show but familiar to many NASCAR TV viewers. The network went outside of the ESPN family to sign NASCAR veterans Kenny Schrader and Johnny Benson for frequent appearances this season. The results have been wonderful.

It's been many years since Schrader and Benson shared an hour of NASCAR TV on Monday nights, but the chemistry remains. Paired with Craven and Massaro filling-in for Bestwick, the Monday show had a completely different vibe with veteran observations about the weekend combined with a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor long missing from this program.

Network personalities like Dale Jarrett, Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty have never fit-in on this show. They are too politically correct, conflicted by personal racing interests and unable to speak their mind. While reporters like Marty Smith and Ryan McGee are media professionals, the perspective they bring is that of a journalist.

It should be very interesting to watch the informal styles of Schrader and Benson influence the show as the season moves forward. Earlier on Monday, Schrader appeared on ESPN's flagship SportsCenter show. He was paired with a news anchor who had absolutely no idea about NASCAR.

Schrader's patience and sense of humor served him well once again as he made all the relevant points and analyzed the action. Perhaps, after five years of constantly struggling to get NASCAR content onto other ESPN programs, the secret all along was to use a 55 year-old veteran driver from Fenton, Missouri.

NASCAR Now has Schrader, Craven and McGee next Monday with Bestwick returning to host. Massaro hosts the weekday shows while Briscoe travels to Texas as a reporter. After some early stops and starts, this series is now a must see for NASCAR fans throughout the season.


It took SPEED several years of being challenged before the network stopped protesting and embraced the concept of a Monday through Thursday show to fill the gap left between programming from the race tracks. The resulting series is RaceHub.

After trying to rotate various on-air talent through the host position, it became rather clear that in order to validate the series there had to be a full time host. Steve Byrnes got the call and made a big professional and personal decision to head into the studio.

The next suggestions included increasing the programs to an hour in length and finding a reporter who could work the NASCAR shop beat full time. SPEED made the decision to do both this season, hiring relatively unknown local sports reporter Danielle Trotta and setting the show times at 7PM ET. Both moves had surprising results.

Trotta has been a natural at speaking to drivers, crew chiefs and owners. She has developed a friendly style that still gets plenty of information and opinion from her interview subjects. Using SPEED's Charlotte, NC location to full advantage, Trotta is usually the only national TV reporter in the shops on Mondays.

Byrnes has embraced the one-hour format, regularly bringing various SPEED and FOX analysts into the studio for updates on topics and issues. Chad Knaus is also a favorite of Byrnes and he appeared on the program Monday.

It's easy to overlook the decades of experience Byrnes has under his belt. He does not call attention to himself and his humor is self-effacing. His true gift is interviewing subjects who are not very polished on TV. From young drivers like 18 year-old Johanna Long to Hall of Famers like 79 year-old Junior Johnson, Byrnes listens first and then asks the right questions.

The executives at SPEED have continued to keep Jimmy Spencer on RaceHub, constantly tinkering with his act. Although not a very convincing leprechaun, Spencer is best when he is answering viewer feedback and interacting directly with the fan base. It should be interesting to see what the new management at SPEED ultimately does with Mr. Excitement.

On Tuesday, RaceHub has Martinsville truck series winner Johnny Sauter and his crew chief Joe Shear in studio. Matt Kenseth will also be interviewed. There will be a recap of the K&N East Series race from Greenville-Pickens Speedway and Ray Dunlap will update the issues surrounding Rick Ware Racing, including the strange dust-up with driver Jeffrey Earnhardt.

We invite your opinions on these two television programs. To add your comment, 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.

TV Police: NASCAR on FOX from Martinsville, VA

The chaos of Martinsville can be solved by only one man. Lt. Frank Columbo might be rumpled and slightly confused, but ultimately he can solve anything. This telecast requires some serious detective skills.

Chris Myers opened the show with Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Hammond from the new outdoor infield set positioned on the backstretch. The first thing that many viewers and even reporters at the track noticed was the colorful fans standing behind the announcers. After two segments, they mysteriously departed.

Waltrip and Hammond ran through the topics associated with the race. Hammond continues to roll his eyes at the antics of Myers and the comments of DW. Waltrip again delivered a "Revved-up" segment preaching the wonders of the sport this season.

Originally at Daytona the outdoor stage seemed to have some real meaning. Since then, it seems to be nothing more than a different location for the exact same show.

Mike Joy called the race with Waltrip and Larry McReynolds. FOX is repeating the same style of coverage in all areas. This is true in the booth and with the production. Waltrip dominated and when he speaks both Joy and McReynolds let him take the lead.

In this telecast, Joy took it all in stride and continually offered a ton of information despite the pictures on the screen. He kept filling in the details and updating the stories. If Joy was ever turned loose to generate some excitement like he used to do, it might be fun to watch.

The "hyper-tight" coverage continued with in-car cameras and tight shots dominating the race. While the booth was calling the action on the track, the director continued to offer forward looking in-car camera views as if they were a new angle for coverage.

Aerial shots were seen in transition and never on restarts. Digger kept a low profile. The scoring ticker seemed to be slower and fans emailed to say by the time it went through the field several laps had ticked by. Tough to use that technology as the primary scoring on a track like Martinsville.

An accident that ultimately brought out a red flag came about as FOX was showing in-car cameras. Replays told the tale and once again the production staff in the truck did a great job with using replays to show all the angles. Never a problem with that in FOX land, they get a lot of practice.

The race settled down with less than one hundred to go and FOX finally provided a through the field style update using the best pit reporters in the business. Ironic that the FOX group is the best and perhaps used the least on the air.

FOX used a nice double video box effect for green flag pit stops and several times broke out a wild triple-split that showed three different races for position on the track.

Over the years, the various TV networks that have televised races from Martinsville relied on wideshots that showed significant portions of the field. The simple reason was that incidents happen quickly and it was easier to replay the tight shots and in-car angles. This approach emphasized the racing.

FOX proudly offers just the opposite. Almost every incident was replayed and information relayed from reporters at the track like pit road penalties was updated by replay. The emphasis from FOX is on making pretty pictures for HDTV viewers.

Ultimately, the race ended with a great story of Dale Earnhardt Jr. getting some quality TV time in the lead. Several NASCAR stars fighting for the win at the end is a story that has played out several times this year.

The race to the finish line was again confusing with FOX trying to show the "drama" of the winner. This time, they had to actually go back and replay the finish of the rest of the lead lap cars. This final lap chaos is typical this season.

This post hosts your race wrap-up comments on the NASCAR on FOX coverage of the Sprint Cup Series racing at Martinsville. 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 stopping by.

Live Blogging Sprint Cup Series From Martinsville (FOX - 12:30PM ET)

The topic today is supposed to be racing but instead it is tires. Goodyear and NASCAR made a change in the tire compound used at Martinsville and the results have been nothing short of a mess.

NASCAR told the drivers this morning in their meeting that they would be cleaning the track all day under the caution flags. This is a result of seeing what happened in the truck series race on Saturday. Any truck that got out of the single groove on the track got into the rubber "marbles" and was done.

This morning, NASCAR VP Robin Pemberton told ESPN's Marty Smith that this issue was going to result in "old school racing" where teams would simply have to conserve tires and decide on strategy based on wear. Pemberton said he hoped Goodyear might test over the summer at Martinsville before the next race.

Chris Myers will lead Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Hammond in the NASCAR on FOX pre-race show from the outdoor studio set-up on the Martinsville backstretch. It should be interesting to see how Waltrip handles the Goodyear topic.

Myers has been challenged to leave his tired act of being the confused clown and step-up to the plate as a sophisticated broadcaster. Now well into the season, Myers can make a big difference in the telecast if he allows the on-air presence he uses on other programs to emerge.

Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds are up next to call the race. McReynolds has been pushed into the background by FOX, starting with the network stopping his "Reach up and pull those belts tight" comment before the race. It's clearly all Waltrip all the time and that is what we should see again.

Waltrip has a long history at Martinsville and there should be plenty of personal references to his own success at this track. Now in his tenth season of NASCAR on FOX, Waltrip has started to put the spotlight on himself more than the drivers in the race. Perhaps this is a function of age, but it is clearly about him a lot more than it has been in the past.

The FOX challenge today is going to be commercial breaks. With short laps at Martinsville under green, every two or even three minute commercial break is going to seem like an eternity. Without RaceBuddy or a side-by-side commercial format, look for viewers to get hot early and stay hot about this issue.

Steve Byrnes, Matt Yocum, Krista Voda and Dick Berrgren are the pit reporters. Tires should be a primary issue, but pit strategy is going to be another race key. Martinsville is also famous for upset drivers, so keep an eye on which drivers that have fallen out of the race are interviewed.

Without using the high cameras on top of the tower, Martinsville makes little sense on TV. In-car cams and low angle shots under green do not show the positions on the track or what cars are racing for what positions. Aerial shots of this track also work very well showing positions, especially on restarts.

The finish line issue continues to be a hot one. Last week it was the winner only, although the second and third place cars just happened to sneak into that shot. At a short and flat track like Martinsville, accidents are known to happen long after the winner has crossed the line as the rest of the field battles to the finish.

FOX has been put in the position before or having to actually playback the lead lap cars finishing after putting the cameras only on the winner, his crew chief and his pit crew as the race finished. Keep an eye on this issue.

This post will serve to host your comments on the NASCAR on FOX coverage of the Sprint Cup Series race from Martinsville, VA. To add your TV-related comment, 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.