United SportsCar Championship media coverage

[NaBUru38]

So, here's what ESPN and AP have to say about the GTLM results at the Daytona 24h:

Porsche North America claimed the GT Le Mans class with its No. 911 RSR entry.

This is what MRN says:

Porsche won its 76th class victory in the Rolex 24 with Nick Tandy, Richard Lietz and Patrick Pilet piloting a Porsche 911 RSR to the win in the GT Le Mans class to finish sixth overall.


“We ran flat out the entire race," Pilet said. "We have to congratulate the entire team, without the problems with Corvette and Viper, we might not have had a shot, so we didn’t give up. But that’s what so great to race in the US, you never know what is going to happen, it is open right up until the very end. We made some fixes after the last test, just in time for this race, and we made it. We got the win.”

John Dagys's articles at the motorsports section on Fox Sports are much longer. But then you have to find them.

[Lagunaseca_4life]

And the article on Imsa.com says Porsche won in a ten minute shoot out to the checker. But totally fails to mention that porshe pretty much dominated after the half way point.http://www.imsa.com/articles/porsche...-sprint-finish

[NaBUru38]

Race finishes seem more importan to them than the race progression.

[Maelochs]

Problem with covering a 24-hour race is that there is 24 hours worth of stuff going on. Another problem is coming up with a headline which readers will find attractive.

"No Surprise at Daytona as Porsche Cruises to Easy Victory" is likely to get lost in the waste-pool of modern screaming media. "Race to the Wire," "Mad Dash to Victory" are more likely to cut through.

This Really hurts the sport, because it feeds NASCAR's insistence that fans only car about he final five minutes (or less) but it is actually an attempt top int3erest non-fans---and of course NASCAR wants those non-fans.

Also, all reporters are fighting two phenomena: One, the shrinking news hole, and two, the trend for people to read only short articles or the beginning of long articles.

Editors might prefer 200-350 words to 650 or 1350---and how much can a reporter say about a 24-hour race, 3ven a 2:45 race, in 200 words? Basically, who won, not how.

[wheelz22]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

Problem with covering a 24-hour race is that there is 24 hours worth of stuff going on. Another problem is coming up with a headline which readers will find attractive.

"No Surprise at Daytona as Porsche Cruises to Easy Victory" is likely to get lost in the waste-pool of modern screaming media. "Race to the Wire," "Mad Dash to Victory" are more likely to cut through.

Yup.....it's one big 'propaganda' machine geared toward drawing in the coveted 'casual fan'....

[wdave0]

Originally Posted by wheelz22

Yup.....it's one big 'propaganda' machine geared toward drawing in the coveted 'casual fan'....

The trouble is that target audience doesn't give a sh** and won't even see the headline, much less spend airfare, hotel, car rental, ticket because of it, or put up with the commercials or take the trouble to fight their way into a streaming platform to hear useless commentary. Grand AM already tried this - it flopped totally.
They would do much better pleasing the existing fans and having them proselytize. Nowadays with social media word of mouth is more powerful than ever.

[wheelz22]

Originally Posted by wdave0

The trouble is that target audience doesn't give a sh** and won't even see the headline, much less spend airfare, hotel, car rental, ticket because of it, or put up with the commercials or take the trouble to fight their way into a streaming platform to hear useless commentary. Grand AM already tried this - it flopped totally.
They would do much better pleasing the existing fans and having them proselytize. Nowadays with social media word of mouth is more powerful than ever.

Agree 100%....however those nimrods that run the show are doomed to repeat their past failures/mistakes....it's in their DNA....as such your excellent suggestion would not even be pondered. (sigh)

[Breitling24]

WSJ did this in the days before the race.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...098958034.html

[Maelochs]

“All of which puts Nascar, the Fox network, Porsche, BMW, Corvette, Aston Martin, SRT Viper, Mazda, Ford, Nissan, Chevrolet and other big hitters together in a new partnership. And if that doesn't succeed in luring some glamour back to sports car racing in America, nothing will.”

Even the best recipe with the most impressive list of ingredients can be prepared badly.

“The racing kicks off at 2 p.m. Saturday at Daytona. The question of who will win might not be as important as whether Americans will care.”

The news here is, almost all the people who already cared, care less now.

I would figure it would take five years to build up a solid New fan base … but if TUSC can’t even keep the die-hards past the first two races ….



http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...098958034.html

[Adam43]

This is tragic.

[NaBUru38]

Here's Scott Atherton's interview by Leo Parente on media.

I loved how Parente's said his fears on "a path that isn't unifying" and his laconic "yes" to Atherton's comment that improving broadcasts is "way beyond pronouncing driver's name correctly".

[NaBUru38]

And the Daytona ratings are...

FS2 - Sat 25, 1:30-2:00 - 0.1 / 91 k
Fox, Sat 25, 2:00-4:00 - 0.5 / 791 k
FS2 - Sat 25, 4:00-9:00 - 0.1 / 130 k
FS1 - Sun 26, 7:00-2:40 - 0.2 / 383 k

The ratings on Fox were below USA Sevens Rugby and Skiing U.S. Grand Prix.

[jeast]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

And the Daytona ratings are...

FS2 - Sat 25, 1:30-2:00 - 0.1 / 91 k
Fox, Sat 25, 2:00-4:00 - 0.5 / 791 k
FS2 - Sat 25, 4:00-9:00 - 0.1 / 130 k
FS1 - Sun 26, 7:00-2:40 - 0.2 / 383 k

The ratings on Fox were below USA Sevens Rugby and Skiing U.S. Grand Prix.

Why bother with a "sport" thats happy being second rate.

[jasonjessica09]

I'm sure there were way more people watching the race via being there in person and internet streams.

[jasonjessica09]

GTLM coverage needs to get better for sure. Hopefully the next few races will be better. Sebring has a great history with this class, while Long Beach and Laguna Seca won't have any LMPC/GTD cars to worry about.

[JacobP]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

And the Daytona ratings are...

FS2 - Sat 25, 1:30-2:00 - 0.1 / 91 k
Fox, Sat 25, 2:00-4:00 - 0.5 / 791 k
FS2 - Sat 25, 4:00-9:00 - 0.1 / 130 k
FS1 - Sun 26, 7:00-2:40 - 0.2 / 383 k

The ratings on Fox were below USA Sevens Rugby and Skiing U.S. Grand Prix.

And barely anyone watched the skiing..

One pattern does emerge here.. not many people are watching FS2. It's sort of an overflow channel for FS1. Many are probably watching FS1 by default, whatever is on it.

[wdave0]

Originally Posted by JacobP

And barely anyone watched the skiing..

One pattern does emerge here.. not many people are watching FS2. It's sort of an overflow channel for FS1. Many are probably watching FS1 by default, whatever is on it.

A lot of people get FS1 but not FS2 and some get neither.

[Scooter185]

Originally Posted by wdave0

A lot of people get FS1 but not FS2 and some get neither.

My parents get both, but our cable package (we live in the same town with the same provider) only nets us FS1

[Lagunaseca_4life]

Yup we don't get fs2 on comcast in my town but the city down the road has fs2 on comcast.

I wonder what was the number of people watching legal/no legal streams? That's what I was watching during the fs2 hours and there were quite a few people too.

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by Lagunaseca_4life

Yup we don't get fs2 on comcast in my town but the city down the road has fs2 on comcast.

I wonder what was the number of people watching legal/no legal streams? That's what I was watching during the fs2 hours and there were quite a few people too.

The trick was to get the Brit's stream and skip the commercials

[cmk]

When I was watching a Motors stream there seemed to be commercial breaks at the same time, at least for the duration that I followed it. Certainly for later the trick was to watch the IMSA stream which did not actually cease once Fox resumed broadcasting, but I don't know whether it aired earlier.

My folks get Speed still here in Canada (which showed all of the FS1 + FS2 coverage) so my dad and I made an attempt to watch the race from the start. I lasted a mere hour, the commercial breaks were intolerable. Despite having access to the television I chose to watch an illegal stream on my computer because it was easier to manage side by side with the work I wanted to do instead of watching commercials. How daft is that?

My takehomes were these: Number one was the number of commercials made the TV package unwatchable, no matter whether it was accessible or not. No flow to the race. It's easy to say that this is the nature of commercials and we're spoiled by webstreams, but I don't find it substantially harder to get the flow of a GP when watching our BBC coverage + commercials with picture in picture on the terrestrial telly at my folks' or via Sky obtained by other means via the comp. Commercials don't have to ruin a broadcast by default. Takehome two was that MRN ruined the overnight hours. The combination of RLM in the headphones, Rooftop Ray on the camera and RLM in Rooftop Ray's headphones made for the most economically spot-on endurance coverage you could imagine. If the powers that be don't understand this is the one and only thing that draws overnight webstream viewers who are uniformly anoraks, I can't possibly unbury their head from where it's presently stuffed and neither can you...

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by JacobP

One pattern does emerge here.. not many people are watching FS2. It's sort of an overflow channel for FS1. Many are probably watching FS1 by default, whatever is on it.

The Rolex 24 was one of the best rated FS2 events, I think. UFC preliminar matches get a little more viewers, but still 0.1 ratings.

[NaBUru38]

http://racer.com/index.php/imsa/item...ision-schedule

Detroit, Indianapolis and Road America will be shown delayed on Fox Sports 1. Austin and Petit Le Mans will be shown on Fox Sports 2. The rest of the races starting with Long Beach will be shown live on Fox Sports 1.

[aneesh99]

The package that Fox Sports has for USCC is just baffling to me. They make a point of continued support for the series, then put together a whack TV package, which in my opinion at some point will culminate with all of it being shifted to FS2 because of 'poor ratings' - a self fulfilling prohency.

More importantly, it doesn't appear that there's a legitimate way for me to watch the full Sebring 12 Hours in the UK.

[Rodger Davies]

you can either watch 9.5 hours on MotorsTV or 9 hours via a stream, apparently - the UK has maybe the best coverage in the world for Sebring as I understand it!