[LM24] Speed TV coverage of Le Mans

[kbeech]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Well, we need to be careful not to offend our NASCAR fans here....
.

No offence was intended for the NASCAR fans. There is a truck race that day and I understand showing that, but practice??? Practice, were talking about practice

I'm starting to sound like Allen Iverson.

[JHamilton]

I am a Nascar fan. I definitely don't watch practice however. I can sleep just fine on my own thanks.

[prototype]

Originally Posted by prototype

Please feel free to tell Speed what you think about thier coverage.

http://www.speedtv.com/feedback

Actually I think it may be more effective to send our greviences to programming@speedtv.com.

Sorry for complicating the matter. Please send them your thoughts on showing Nascar practice and Tradin' Paint instead of a real race with right turns.

[supermario21]

I'm sure the SPEED execs will listen to a degree. In 2004 or 2005 I believe they added 3 or 4 extra hours of coverage. SPEED does a great job with the last half of the race always uninterrupted but a 9 hour gap really is inexcusable. The race changes alot in that time. It would be nice if the could show a half hour instead of NCTS setup, an update during Cup Practice, and cut all the taped shows such as Tradin Paint, Lexus Test Drive, etc. I'm sure Le Mans draws better than those shows. At least there is video coverage, RLM, and live timing, though. Right now we have 15 hours of racing and with those additions we could be up to what, 18 or 19?

[mattcat]

Originally Posted by prototype

Actually I think it may be more effective to send our greviences to programming@speedtv.com.

Sorry for complicating the matter. Please send them your thoughts on showing Nascar practice and Tradin' Paint instead of a real race with right turns.

Thanks prototype, I let them have my opinion. Maybe if enough of us write and make it known that there are fans of endurance sports car racing in America, they will reconsider their position.

[The359]

Last year was 17.5 hours of the race. This year is 15, although there is an hour on Speed's schedule that is blank, has nothing in it, so hopefully they'll bump it up to 16 hours of race coverage.

And, as pointed out, the time we are missing will be approximately 6pm to 3am in France.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by The359

And, as pointed out, the time we are missing will be approximately 6pm to 3am in France.

Just the best part then.......

[prototype]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Just the best part then.......

I would aprecciate an email. Even IF you are in Europe or at the race

[Ultimo]

Originally Posted by supermario21

check the MMS link. someone has always posted it for the LMS races. Then use the VLC media player. Going through Eurosport itself will get you a region restriction unless you use a proxy server based in Europe.

What's an MMS link and VLC media player?

[supermario21]

Im not the big tech junky but MMS is just like http: for instance. VLC media player just google it and you will find it. It plays these MMS links very easily. Don't worry about it though, because for the LMS Races so far someone has posted the MMS link where all you need to do is copy the link and paste it in the open network stream section of the VLC media player.

[porsche45]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Just the best part then.......

Exactly! I thought it said so much last year, when Leigh Diffy is signing off for SPEED's "night-time break," he says something along the lines of "Now is the hardest time of this race." And then says "So long." Hey, thanks for that build-up, and then that giant let-down.

[dj4monie]

Originally Posted by supermario21

Eurosport will have full online streaming of everything, complete with commentary, so dont worry at all. This is awful though, I mean this is shaping up to be one of the finest races since 1999 and to miss a 9 hour chunk is pretty bad. Maybe it will be in HD, though. If it is, Directv might be a neccessity. Anyways though, were all complaining about this coverage, and rightly so, but think about it in the 1980s, when ESPN showed what, a half hour on each end. I was watching a youtube video of the 1989 24 hours of le mans and ESPN had some Le Mans hotline where you had to pay to get hourly updates, lol. But yeah, Lexus Test Drive, NCTS Setup, and Nascar Performance and Tradin Paint are inexcusable reasons to miss a race that as Bob Varsha said in 1989 "can only be compared to the Indy 500."

Mario that's all nice and everything and yes coverage used to be next to nothing and on top of that weeks after the finish!

But this is the 21st Century where we are only 9 months away from total switch over to digital tv, where internet tv will play a vital roll in On Demand Video as well as live streaming of events not carried by traditional cable and sat providers.

No excuse for this and clearly Speed has taken up FOX's mantra of "Fair and Balance" while feeding you a steady diet of BULL.

I am positive only 40% of NASCAR Nation wants to know what Kyle Bush is going in his off-time. But they aren't covering that. They are manufacturing stories to tell about the series, talking to drivers that will never win a race, ever and other unimportant shhh nobody outside of die hard fans are even interested in.

All we ASK for is ONE weekend EVERY SUMMER that we get OUR day in the Sun.

Its one race, one 24 hour period, even if you covered all the stuff in between its around 30 hours of coverage.

America and Canada can DO WITHOUT Cup Racing for ONE STINKING Weekend of wall to wall coverage.

I think THAT is the point we are trying to make as ALL of us pay a premium to even get Speed.

[supermario21]

Originally Posted by dj4monie

Mario that's all nice and everything and yes coverage used to be next to nothing and on top of that weeks after the finish!

But this is the 21st Century where we are only 9 months away from total switch over to digital tv, where internet tv will play a vital roll in On Demand Video as well as live streaming of events not carried by traditional cable and sat providers.

No excuse for this and clearly Speed has taken up FOX's mantra of "Fair and Balance" while feeding you a steady diet of BULL.

I am positive only 40% of NASCAR Nation wants to know what Kyle Bush is going in his off-time. But they aren't covering that. They are manufacturing stories to tell about the series, talking to drivers that will never win a race, ever and other unimportant shhh nobody outside of die hard fans are even interested in.

All we ASK for is ONE weekend EVERY SUMMER that we get OUR day in the Sun.

Its one race, one 24 hour period, even if you covered all the stuff in between its around 30 hours of coverage.

America and Canada can DO WITHOUT Cup Racing for ONE STINKING Weekend of wall to wall coverage.

I think THAT is the point we are trying to make as ALL of us pay a premium to even get Speed.

Don't get me wrong. I'm just as ticked as all of you guys are. SPEED could easily move their NASCAR stuff to another channel for 1 day.

[kbeech]

No excuse for this and clearly Speed has taken up FOX's mantra of "Fair and Balance" while feeding you a steady diet of BULL.

Uh, Fox's news division has nuthin' to do with SpeedTV(oh, the wailing and nashing of teeth the previous sentence will cause!! . )
Unfortunatly, Speed (and the rest of the networks) are still using the outdated Nielson rating format. Do you know anybody who actually owns one of those box thingys that Nielson uses to track viewership?

[dj4monie]

Originally Posted by kbeech

No excuse for this and clearly Speed has taken up FOX's mantra of "Fair and Balance" while feeding you a steady diet of BULL.

Uh, Fox's news division has nuthin' to do with SpeedTV(oh, the wailing and nashing of teeth the previous sentence will cause!! . )
Unfortunatly, Speed (and the rest of the networks) are still using the outdated Nielson rating format. Do you know anybody who actually owns one of those box thingys that Nielson uses to track viewership?

Yes I know it has very little to do with the news side, however, they say they are the face of motorsports, but show you more NASCAR than anything else, that's how I draw the connection...

When Speedvision came into being Roger L.Werner Jr. who was apart of ESPN's push in racing; when they had a majority of Cup then (some 23 races), didn't overexpose you to it and covered IMSA events LIVE (look on Speed's Video page) and Firehawk racing tape-delayed.

The Nashville Network (Spike TV) gave you the "inside" coverage of Cup if that's what you wanted. In fact I think it's safe to say, TNN's viewership tripled on weekends they showed RACING, compared to showing "Ache Breaky Heart" during the week.

Nielson ratings system is outdated, I agree. But Speedvision wasn't so much about ratings as to what the fans wanted, which was largely Sportscars and F1. When Fox bought it, (an offer Werner couldn't refuse of course) they envisioned a NASCAR channel to put all their excessive coverage of the sport on cable since events like Le Mans and ALMS generated little money and smaller ratings that your average Cup event.

SPEED made news with the 2005 firing of network president Jim Liberatore, who had been with the network since FOX bought it in 2001 when it was still Speedvision, reportedly because Liberatore had wanted to reduce the number of NASCAR-related shows on the network, and the network brass wanted more NASCAR-related programming.

That is the TRUTH the whole TRUTH and nothing but the truth...

Of course FOX will not come out and say they fired him because he wanted less NASCAR, that would alienate the 30-40% of Speed households that pay extra just to get the channel. If we revolted, I doubt Speed could replace us.

Auto Racing is just small enough to be considered "Niche" programing and never command the numbers other channels get, which I think Speedvision's management understood much better. They covered Cup, why not, they provide "Hot Pass" before it was "Hot Pass" on Direct TV.

What they didn't do was FORCE it down our throats!

Since Liberatore was ousted, FOX has been steady cutting back on programing that is not NASCAR Related or a "lifestyle" show.

Just how many NASCAR related shows are on Speed you ask?

* NASCAR Live!
* NASCAR Performance
* NASCAR RaceDay (2 hours of "insider" nonsense)
* NASCAR Trackside
* NASCAR Victory Lane
* Survival of the Fastest
* The Speed Report (22 mins on average spent on Cup during a race weekend and at least 12 mins on a non-race weekend)
* This Week in NASCAR (1 hour recap show, used to be 2 hours)
* Trackside
* Tradin' Paint
* WindTunnel with Dave Despain (At least 12 mins and numerous phone calls are fielded by Despain on the subject of either NASCAR or Dale Jr.)

There aren't this many F1 shows in the WORLD that covers F1 in English! and that is considered to have a larger fan base than NASCAR...

We are overexposed and only people that would kill somebody over wrecking Dale Jr would disagree.

Liberatore will save us, I believe the delay is partly because of the switch over to the digital format in the United States.

Once The Racing Network announces they will carry ALMS races live and in HD, I will not turn on Speed again, no reason too. I like PINKS! only because I like grassroots drag racing and I like the All Out shows better than regular show which ratings overall bear that out as well. Other than that, Speed will be off my favorites channel list.

I used to rock a Speed t-shirt but once it wore out I didn't get another one. I still have a Speedvision shirt....

[prototype]

What is The Racing Network?

[Rodger Davies]

http://theracingnetwork.com/

Set up by the guy mentioned above that Fox replaced due to his lack of NASCARloving. A motorsports channel without NASCAR, only it hasn't been launched yet.

I wonder what sort of licenses they'll be able to get. For what it's worth (which isn't much coming from the UK), I gave it my support.

[the sniper]

Originally Posted by prototype

What is The Racing Network?

It's a motor sport channel that will have no NASCAR, it have been talked about for a year or so but there have been few updates. The guy who's starting it used to run Speed, they say their plans are progressing but I heard that they a struggling to find investors, seeing as the channel does not appeal to a wide US audience. They plan to show all types of racing, whether it will ever actually launch, nobody really knows...

http://theracingnetwork.com/index.php

(Funny how much I know about this, seeing as I live on the other side of the Atlantic )

EDIT: Looks like more people in Britain know about this channel then in the US!

[prototype]

I just signed the petition, and forwarded it to a few friends.

I wonder how the word in Britain got it better than the US. Clearly they are targeting a US market.

[mattcat]

I signed it as well. I really hope that this gets off the ground. I was unaware of this project, but am now quite excited!

[prototype]

Maybe we should start a thread called Sign Up For The Racing Network.

[dj4monie]

Why not?

This forum isn't owned by any of the networks or the BBC if that's where the servers are located (in the UK).

What hasn't been finalized is what format the channel will be in, IPTV or typical broadcast TV and where it will be available.

I don't see why it would be so hard to find investors, look at all the money spent on Sportscar racing just in the US alone...

In the sign up form they asked would you switch over, I would guess that means if its on a cable network, would you switch over to cable from sat to get it.

I think honestly they should look into IPTV. Its fairly inexpensive, STB (Set Top Boxes) are fairly cheap; look at the new NetFlicks STB, $100 and that will drop, forget mailing back those DVD's you rented, just download them or stream them via the box.

It all really depends how they wanna do it. If your just carrying content like Motors TV and don't have in studio shows like Speed News or Sportscenter for example, that would reduce cost.

Speedvision got off the ground, no reason why another network couldn't. There's plenty of "niche" tv, that was always the promise of cable, sat and internet tv anyway.

I think Speedvision's downfall was being located in NASCAR Ground Zero in North Carolina.

Just think of all the series that don't get serious play on Speed now, that could suceed on its own channel as long as expectations aren't too high and they never were with Speedvision, I mean my goodness they showed you shuttle lauchings like they were still special and they are to a small segment of the population, but you got your launches...

They supported Craig Breedlove's attempt at bringing the Land Speed Record back to the United States, grassroots stuff Speed would never think about doing on its own unless there was NASCAR involvement.

PINKS solely exist because the fans support it and the producers listen to the fans, that's why the All Out show exist...

It can be done, just get your friends to sign it!

[keelan]

I wrote a letter and complained also. Some of the programming they have during lemans is just fluff.

[JHamilton]

lol.... guys we do this every year. The letters ain't going to help.

[pach233]

They have helped in the past. there have been times where Speed has added a couple of hours to the original schedule. Now there's no way we can get them to get rid of the practices or the truck race but, some of the other stuff I'm sure we can convince them to show at a different hour. Just need enough poeple to send letters.