Undercover Boss: The Aftermath

We rarely deal with entertainment television here at TDP, but this time we are going to make an exception. Sunday night's episode of CBS's Undercover Boss had a NASCAR theme that got a lot of people talking.

Never having seen the show before, I assumed that the TV journey NASCAR Chief Marketing Officer Steve Phelps took was a normal one. A designated executive from a large corporation takes a turn doing various jobs of lower-level employees. It seems like a simple concept.

Phelps mingled with a Sprint Cup Series pit crew, a sign painter and some folks running a concession stand. Along the way, despite the presence of camera crews, the idea was to make some conversation and absorb a little of the workplace reality.

In this episode, the issues were the sometimes unstable life of a pit crew member, the serious illness of a child and the financial struggles of good people. All the folks involved were outstanding examples of Americans working hard in a tough economy. It's a very workable TV formula.

Undercover Boss is always a ratings winner. Sunday over ten million viewers watched. That is more than double the audience for Sprint Cup Series Chase races so far this season.

As with all subjective topics, there are two sides. On the positive side, NASCAR got lots of great exposure from this program. Also, Phelps rose to the challenge and seemed to be a good conversationalist. He drew some interesting details from the participants.

On the other side of the coin, some folks emailed to say not one actual NASCAR employee was involved in the program. Top company executives Brian France and Mike Helton were not present at the end of the show, nor did they offer reactions to Phelps and his journey.

NASCAR has a wide variety of employees. There are administrative, operational and even media-related jobs that are done everyday. From the very visible inspectors in the garage to NASCAR-owned MRN radio broadcasts, NASCAR is nothing if not diverse.

Some critics felt NASCAR held itself at arms length again and never let Phelps crack the reality of being an actual employee. Instead, the stories selected well in advance each had a theme that ultimately painted the sport in a good light.

Never having seen the show, I understand both angles. It would have been fun to see Phelps taking race cars through track inspection, holding a wireless TV transmitter for a pit road reporter or even taking tickets at the Hall of Fame.

This type of entertainment TV show is scripted to send a message at the end. In this program, the message was certainly intended to be that NASCAR understands and cares for the issues in the lives of those involved in the sport in some fashion.

Were you one of the millions who watched this program? Help us out with your opinion about the various aspects of what was discussed above. Did NASCAR come away with a better image and positive spin or did the fact that Phelps interacted with no actual employees of his own company bother you as a viewer?

To add your comments on this topic, 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.

Talking Sunday NASCAR TV

UPDATE: There will be no more "Your Turn" posts. Feel free to add your post-race comments right here.

The good news is that we can now use one post to host all the NASCAR TV comments on the day. The bad news is the reason why. Numbers are down all over the place for NASCAR, including online blogs like this one.

The day starts with Nicole Briscoe and NASCAR Now on ESPN2 at 9AM. She has Marty Smith on-site in Martinsville, VA. It should be interesting to see how much focus of this hour goes to the unraveling of RPM and the recent rumors of impending demise.

As we reported, Smith minced no words Friday in reporting that no mechanics had left RPM, that Roush-Fenway had been paid in full by RPM and that Kasey Kahne did not leave RPM being owed any money. These facts were completely the opposite of reports on Thursday from Race Hub's Bob Dillner.

NASCAR RaceDay is up next at 10AM with two hours of news and interviews. Saturday morning, SPEED telecast one hour of Sprint Cup Series practice avoiding the Kahne and RPM story entirely. Only in the last few minutes was it even mentioned.

While Race Hub is produced in-house by SPEED, the other programs from the track are produced for SPEED by the NASCAR Media Group. How else can it be explained that Kahne driving onto the track in the Red Bull car was not the first image viewers saw on Saturday morning? Instead, the TV team did everything possible to dance around the huge elephant in the middle of the room.

John Roberts hosts RaceDay, but the meat of the program is provided by reporters Wendy Venturini and Hermie Sadler. Since Sadler is driving in the race, he will be of limited value as far as news gathering is concerned. It's up to Venturini to provide an updated overview of the entire RPM story.

Perhaps the person with the most interesting perspective is going to be RaceDay panelist Kyle Petty. Teamed with the hootin' and hollerin' cheerleader Kenny Wallace, Petty actually hosted the RPM merger press conference live on SPEED way back when.

Petty has never been one to mince words and his feelings about the truthfulness of RPM and the current situation could make for the most memorable TV viewing of the day.

Allen Bestwick is next as once again the NASCAR Countdown show has been moved over to ESPN2 at noon ET. Along with Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty, Bestwick has a lot of ground to cover with all the news and silly season changes unfolding this week.

Marty Reid leads Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree into yet another Chase telecast over on ESPN at 1PM. On this tiny track, ESPN cannot use side-by-side video boxes for live racing or endless in-car camera shots. Reid cannot simply work off the TV monitor and needs to stick his head out the window and call the actual race as it happens. This week it has to be different.

It's all about pit strategy on Sunday and Dr. Jerry Punch and the pit reporters are going to have to play a major role in the telecast. The intensity is high at this track and there are no doubt going to be some upset drivers before the day is done.

ESPN will offer an extended post-race before the three hour block of The Speed Report, Victory Lane and Wind Tunnel gets underway on SPEED at 7PM.

This post is going to host your comments on NASCAR's Sunday TV from start to finish. 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 The Daly Planet.

Combo Live Blog: Trucks On SPEED and NNS On ESPN2

This should be a very interesting afternoon on TV. SPEED starts the day with the Camping World Truck Series from Martinsville, VA. Then, ESPN2 is next with the Nationwide Series from Gateway in St. Louis, MO.

Krista Voda hosts The Set-up pre-race show at 12:30PM. Then Rick Allen, Phil Parsons and Michael Waltrip take over to call the 1PM race. Ray Dunlap and Adam Alexander are on pit road. Trucks are a great show at Martinsville and with some Cup Series cross-overs, it should be a fun race on TV.

College football is again about to play a role in the Nationwide Series this weekend. The trucks are set to begin the telecast at 3PM following a college football game that began at noon. Typically, the games run 3.5 hours.

The excuse from ESPN during this time of the season is that only the meaningless pre-race show is usually lost, so the race should be just fine. That does not help the many teams struggling for sponsorship this year who really need a national TV exposure even before the event.

Vince Welch will call the race from Gateway with Ricky Craven and Rusty Wallace in the TV booth. Down on pit road are Jim Noble and Rick DeBruhl. Craven has worked well with Wallace in the past while Welch is still in the early stages of his attempts at play-by-play.

Earlier today, SPEED telecast the early Cup practice from Martinsville live. Not once in the first 55 minutes of the hour was the RPM and Kasey Kahne situation mentioned. Fans who did not see coverage during the week had no idea that Kahne had changed teams. I felt this was incredibly bad decision-making by SPEED and voiced my opinion. The situation was mentioned once right before the show was over.

It should be very interesting to see how ESPN and SPEED handle the RPM situation on the pre-race shows Sunday morning. NASCAR Now is at 9AM, RaceDay at 10 and NASCAR Countdown at noon.

This combo live blog today will host your comments on the truck race, the Nationwide Series event and the RPM coverage on TV. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This should be a very interesting afternoon. Thanks for joining us to talk about it.