Live Blogging Nationwide Series From Richmond (SPEED - 7:30PM)

Here we go! Big night for SPEED as the network produces the Nationwide Series race from Richmond International Raceway.

It will be Rick Allen calling the action with Darrell and Michael Waltrip in the TV booth. Krista Voda, Ray Dunlap and Hermie Sadler are the pit road reporters.

ESPN is involved in NFL Draft coverage and ESPN and ABC are also booked. NASCAR brokered a deal to get the race over to SPEED, knowing that network was already very familiar to NASCAR fans.

The telecast promises to be very different from the ESPN presentations. SPEED will focus on the race, as opposed to the Sprint Cup Series emphasis that has been an ESPN pattern.

The evening will also have a live and free RaceBuddy over at NASCAR.com and many of the SPEED personalities will be tweeting all night long during the race. Twitter has proven to be a great outlet for live updates on NASCAR news.

This post will serve to host your comments on this Nationwide special. 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 to everyone for dropping by The Daly Planet.

TV Set-up: Nationwide Series From Richmond On SPEED

Here is a review of what is going on Friday in terms of NASCAR TV:

SPEED is on the air at 10:30AM with Nationwide Series practice. The complete Friday NASCAR TV schedule is located on the left side of the website. Interesting to note that Darrell Waltrip will only do the early Sprint Cup Series practice. It will be Kyle Petty in the TV booth for final practice and qualifying coverage.

Because SPEED is covering the live Nationwide Series race, Trackside is being split into two shows of thirty minutes each. Matt Kenseth is the first guest at 7PM ET and David Gilliland is the nightcap at 10:30PM or at the conclusion of the live race.

NASCAR.com has announced that there will be a free RaceBuddy application for the Friday night Nationwide Series race. This should provide four additional cameras views and social media chat. Down the road, team scanners and live leaderboards will also be a part of this Internet tool.

Most everyone knows that the race will also bring Michael and Darrell Waltrip to the TV booth along with Rick Allen. Fans have suggested Allen bring everything with him from a hard hat to a fog horn. This idea of two Waltrip's is either going to be outstanding or cause a titanic trainwreck.

Thursday NASCAR hired a Vice President of Broadcasting. Steve Herbst is a stick and ball guy who worked heading-up CBS College Sports. Herbst first made his mark with a 20 year career at the NBA in a variety of TV and media roles. Herbst will be based in NASCAR's New York City office and will report to NASCAR Media Group President Paul Brooks.

Also on Thursday SPEED televised Denny Hamlin's late model charity race from the Richmond International Raceway. This was the first live telecast of this event, but when SPEED came on the air the K&N Series cars were sitting under rain tarps. Kudos to the network for showing the remainder of the K&N race and then airing the Hamlin event in full.

There is now a big push at SPEED for announcers to interact directly with fans via social media. There will be more detail on this topic tomorrow, but it is very clear that Twitter and Facebook are going to continue to be hotbeds of NASCAR content.

We will update any additional news that comes out on Friday, but in the meantime please feel free to offer comments on any of the Friday TV coverage on SPEED. Just click the button below to post your comment. Thanks for stopping by, there will be a live blog of the Nationwide Series race open at 7PM Friday night right here at TDP. See you then!

Special: Tornado Crisis And Television

We are going to step away from NASCAR for one day and return on Thursday evening with a new column. Many Americans lost their lives on Wednesday night in an amazing tornado outbreak that stretched from Texas through Virginia.

As perhaps many of you did, I turned to the cable news networks for updates. I found O'Reilly on FOX, a show about greed on CNBC, Nancy Grace on Headline News, former Gov. Spitzer on CNN and some guy who wanted the last word on MSNBC. What I did not find was coverage of this national disaster.

It was only the hardworking men and women at The Weather Channel (TWC) who were holding up their end of the bargain and offering non-stop coverage of the storms. Radar, videos and pics were great tools to help people across the Southeast stay informed.

TWC had reporters in the field doing liveshots, several roaming with the storms. The network has a severe storm expert following the live radar and offering a tremendous amount of information to viewers. Finally, TWC was completely on top of the social media side with information, pictures and videos from Twitter and Facebook.

The outrage that FOX, CNN and the NBC cable news nets appeared not to care about the weather situation is well-deserved. Between President Obama's birth certificate, the royal wedding and Donald Trump's self-promotion there was plenty of juicy content for the various primetime programs.

These types of shows are called long-form branded content. Long because they are one hour in length and branded because they have a specific person, like O'Reilly or Nancy Grace, associated with them. It wasn't always this way, but it is what the current cable TV news networks have become.

TWC's severe weather expert Dr. Greg Forbes was no doubt a lifesaver to many Wednesday night. The tireless meteorologist was constantly updating a myriad of radar images on the fly and continually moving people out of the way of the storm.

His intensity made it even more ironic when a spin of the dial caught the cable news talking heads ranting on subjects that made little impact but let them make noise in the ratings.

Perhaps you can share with us your actions on seeking news about these Wednesday evening storms. What network or website did you wind-up turning to for the information you wanted? How did it work and what made sense to you the most?

I think it's time for the cable news networks, especially CNN and HLN to look in the mirror and return to program line-ups based on information from the real world. It used to be that the cable news nets filled an agenda of updating the stories of the day in primetime. Now, it's all about scripted drama, overstatements and agendas.

Leave us a note on your opinion of this topic by clicking 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.