NASCAR TV Scarce For Charlotte Media Tour

Update: Monday night just before 8PM, SPEED's Randy Pemberton announced that SPEED will be carrying the NASCAR press conference from the Charlotte Media Tour live. Unofficial information sets the telecast for Thursday at 1PM ET. We will confirm this ASAP.

NASCAR staggers into 2010 still bearing the scars from a rough ending to the previous year. During the off-season, the sport made wholesale changes in an effort to return the Sprint Cup Series to national prominence.

There are four TV networks that televise the practice, qualifying and race action during the year. Two of those networks, ESPN and SPEED, offer daily news programs about the sport. NASCAR Now is seen six days a week on ESPN2 and Race Hub is aired Monday through Thursday on SPEED.

NASCAR Now airs at 5PM ET, before ESPN2's primetime line-up gets clogged with live sports coverage. The network also tries to re-air the program after midnight for the West Coast audience. "Tries" is the operative word in that sentence.

SPEED added Race Hub into the mix late last year, seemingly from nowhere. There was no build-up, no hype and little planning. Whatever happened at the network caused a ton of resources to immediately be allocated to what was a long forgotten cause, NASCAR news during the weekdays.

Having two daily NASCAR news programs on TV is going to be great for the fans in 2010. NASCAR Now in the early timeslot will focus on using its own reporters to deliver updates on the sport and mix interviews with pre-produced features.

Race Hub is designed to host NASCAR personalities live in the Charlotte, NC studios of SPEED. The mix between the buttoned-up style of ESPN and the casual style of SPEED should be fun to watch.

This week, writers and reporters from across the nation make the annual trip to the Concord, NC area. The Charlotte Motor Speedway hosts a media tour that provides coordinated visits to team shops and NASCAR locations during a four day media blitz that begins on Monday.

This is the time when the teams offer new information and answer questions. Drivers, crew chiefs and owners have media conversations that set the tone for the season. NASCAR itself hosts the media at the Research and Development Center and usually announces updates and changes during this function.

There is also a stop at the NASCAR Hall of Fame to update the progress of that immense facility scheduled to open later this year. A visit to the SPEED studios was not on any published agenda that I received. That is not a good thing.

Unlike past seasons where the power of the NASCAR media was firmly rooted in print publications and their online websites, the tide has changed with the recent demise of NASCAR Scene. Many veteran reporters were fired in a one day event that changed the face of the NASCAR media.

In a rather de facto manner, television is about to become the leader in putting the NASCAR headlines front and center for the fans. Then, fans can go and search for those same topics online. With hundreds of various NASCAR websites around and the number growing, the two NASCAR TV news programs are going to be a guiding light for fans.

Monday, there will be no NASCAR Now on ESPN2. The series is not scheduled to begin until February 1 this year. The information from the media tour will try to push its way onto ESPNEWS and perhaps SportsCenter. Amid the NFL playoffs, NASCAR is not even a blip on the ESPN radar. Best of luck.

That leaves SPEED to carry the NASCAR banner and it will start the week strong with Race Hub on Monday at 7:30PM. Hosts Adam Alexander and Randy Pemberton will welcome NASCAR President Mike Helton. What a great way to kick-off four days of live media tour coverage. Unfortunately, that is not going to be the case.

The Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday editions of Race Hub are being preempted by the Barrett-Jackson auto auction from Arizona. After only being back on the air for one week, Race Hub is done after the Monday show. The next live news program on the network is The SPEED Report on Sunday evening.

The auction coverage begins at 7PM each night, so SPEED made a choice not to move Race Hub up by one hour and air it at 6:30PM on those three mid-week days. Airing in the 6 to 7PM timeslot are re-airs of "lifestyle programs." Race Hub returns on Monday, January 25.

Ironically, after all the chaos in the NASCAR media during the off-season, getting the pre-season message out during this big week will once again come down to the remaining members of the NASCAR press corps. Unfortunately, both of NASCAR's national TV news shows are off the air for very different reasons.

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SPEED Strikes Gold At Last

Well, it certainly was a very long time coming. Veteran TDP readers know the frustration we have expressed over the past several years with the lack of weekday NASCAR programming on SPEED.

Monday on SPEED used to feature This Week in NASCAR in the evening. That show was taped in the early afternoon and focused on racing highlights. Once it was done the long wait began until the network started telecasts from the next racetrack on Friday.

Over the years, SPEED has offered a wide variety of excuses for running and re-running the weekday "lifestyle programming" that one of its executives championed. The original long-form NASCAR programs fell off the radar screen while people towed trucks, chased stolen cars and bracket-raced at drag strips.

Here are excerpts from an article in TV Week several years ago where SPEED VP Bob Ecker talks about why the network dumped racing-related programming on weekdays:

The network’s (new) strategy is to air what it calls "automotive lifestyle programming" in prime time. When Fox acquired control of SPEED in 2002, the network took on part of the company’s NASCAR package and showed racing seven nights a week, said Robert Ecker, VP of Programming.

But, SPEED’s racing programming on weeknights stalled. “It didn’t work. It didn’t resonate,” Mr. Ecker said. That led SPEED executives to start to develop automotive lifestyle programming.

“We have discovered over the course of time that while there are race fans, there are also people that have a love affair with the automobiles but are not necessarily interested in racing,” Ecker said. Click here to read the article in its entirety.

Well, a funny thing happened last year prior to the week of the NASCAR Hall of Fame selections. SPEED suddenly scrambled to put a half-baked NASCAR news show on the air called Race Hub. It just appeared out of thin air. The buzz was that it actually appeared after a phone call from NASCAR.

Originally, it was so bad you couldn't turn away. Then, things began to change. NASCAR personalities started to appear in the North Charlotte, NC studios of SPEED. They just drove over to SPEED in their blue jeans and talked about NASCAR topics.

Unfortunately, the season ended shortly after Race Hub was just finding a groove. Amazingly enough, SPEED quickly confirmed it would return on January 11 for a new season. The network also added a repeat at 8:30PM Pacific Time to serve the West Coast NASCAR fans. Suddenly, there was an hour of NASCAR on SPEED Monday through Thursday in primetime every single week.

This season, something rather amazing has happened. NASCAR has come alive on SPEED during the weekdays. Steve Letarte, Danica Patrick, Mike Joy, Larry McReynolds, Travis Kvapil and many others have been in the studio. Cars have been brought in to make driver and sponsor announcements, Reed Sorenson being the latest. All this was in just four days of thirty minute shows.

Slowly but surely, NASCAR is awakening to the fact that live national TV exposure is now available literally right down the street. Perhaps, SPEED is awakening to the fact that this sort of program should have been on the air years ago.

Many of the Race Hub shows this week struggled to fit into a thirty minute format. Guests like Mike Joy, Robin Miller and even Danica Patrick seemed to be having fun and could have continued with their racing conversations. Maybe one hour pre-season shows next year would serve to allow even more NASCAR personalities to stop by and chat.

SPEED will continue to rotate its own announcers through this program as hosts. On February 1, ESPN2's outstanding NASCAR Now program returns to offer earlier news updates on the sport at 5PM on weekdays. Race Hub is going to have to exploit the Charlotte location and studio interaction to keep the current momentum going.

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NASCAR Media Notes: Updated DirecTV Information

There are several stories that unfolded Wednesday. They involved the new Showtime TV series, SPEED's former This Week in NASCAR program, changes in the Fox management structure and ESPN moving races between networks.

Thursday update: A break may be happening in the DirectTV stand-off with the VERSUS cable network, which is owned by Comcast. Sports Illustrated reporter Josh Gross said an agreement between the two parties is expected in March. This would protect several of VERSUS sports properties and restore this 24 hour channel to DirecTV.

Radio update: Jayski will be on Sirius NASCAR channel 128 Thursday night at 8:30PM talking NASCAR with Claire B Lang on Dialed-In.

John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal reported the new line-up for the Inside NASCAR series that will debut on Showtime in February. Fox's Chris Myers will host. On the panel are TNT's Kyle Petty, SPEED's Randy Pemberton and ESPN's Brad Daugherty. Those seem to be rather political choices for this new series that is being produced by NASCAR's own in-house TV group.

Petty and Pemberton are NASCAR TV veterans who have extensive family backgrounds in the sport. Myers departs the NASCAR scene after the Fox races and moves to other assignments. Daugherty is an active Sprint Cup Series owner and has fought that issue in his day job with ESPN.

Inside NASCAR debuts on Showtime February 10 and will run for 38 weeks. It will be bundled with Showtimes's Inside the NFL as a sports TV block.

Press information sent to the media recently lists Michael Waltrip's TV background. Two sentences leapt off the page for us:

“In addition to his role as co-owner, Waltrip has been a popular television personality on SPEED since 1996. He’s an analyst for its NASCAR Camping World Truck Series broadcasts and was an original member of one of the longest running shows on the cable network, “This Week in NASCAR” 1996-2009.”

That would seem to put an unofficial end to rumors that TWIN was returning for 2010. There has still been no comment from SPEED, which has been strangely silent on this issue. 14 years is an amazing run for any cable TV series, Monday nights will just not be the same.

Also, some senior management changes have resulted in shifting TV duties. Fox Sports President David Hill is having his responsibilities broadened to include managing the Fox Cable Networks. While this includes the Fox Regional Sports Networks and FUEL, it also includes SPEED. This puts Hill as the ultimate boss of that network, which has been in transition for several years in terms of programming and direction.

Finally, news broke from ESPN about the final seventeen Sprint Cup Series races of the season. In a nutshell, all but three of those events are going to air on ESPN in 2010. The three in question are Saturday night races that will remain on ABC. In addition, the Sunday Chase races that air in NFL season will have the pre-race show moved to ESPN2, with the race then being shown on ESPN.

This is quite a change in direction for NASCAR. Originally, one big part of the NASCAR TV contract was that the final ten races should be on "free tv," as over-the-air network transmission is called. In 2010, all NASCAR fans will have to get ESPN and ESPN2 to see the pre-race shows and the races themselves.

ESPN is quick to point out many other major sports properties are on cable. NASCAR is also on board with this change, so there is no contract issue. While the decisions have been made and the changes will go forward, there are some things to remember.

NASCAR has been a nightmare for ESPN. Plain and simple, it has been a face-off where every change of format, on-air talent or production technique has been like pulling teeth. It has been three seasons since Brent Musburger stood on pit road at Indy in his sneakers and told us ESPN was the Worldwide Leader in Sports.

Now, Musburger and many of the first year gang are gone. The NASCAR Now show has been completely revamped with great success. Allen Bestwick has brought order to every program originating from the Infield Pit Studio. Jerry Punch has been moved to pit road and Marty Reid is here to call the action in 2010.

ESPN gets the nod on this schedule change because it comes at a time when everything in NASCAR from COT wings to race start times is changing. Something has to be done to get this sport back on its feet other than politics on the radio or good social media PR.

If leading into the Chase races with an NFL Football preview show will help, then let's do it. However, one big issue still remains and only ESPN can solve it. 2010 is the last gasp of credibility for ESPN where producing live Sprint Cup Series races is concerned. There is no other way to say it.

Images of seeing Jimmie Johnson's pit stop replays one lug nut at a time as the field went green are burned into our minds. The awkward silence of Punch at critical moments in races has been documented for three seasons. Who can forget when Johnson hit the wall early and the telecast switched to coverage from the garage? The actual Chase race became an afterthought. For many fans, so did ESPN at that moment.

Kudos to ESPN for making changes once again. Now, it's time to look in the mirror and make changes to help the network's production of this great sport. Those changes are always the hardest. The time is right. A lot is at stake. Here we go.

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