Thoughts on the LB TV Coverage?

Snrub · 10 Apr 2005, 22:17 (Ref:1275108)

Now that we finally had our much lemented network TV coverage for LB, what did you think? Better, worse, different?

I have to say that I was a little disappointed that they focused so heavily on the top 3-4 cars. I had no idea what was going on behind or if anyone passed, etc.

Russ-Turner · 10 Apr 2005, 22:28 (Ref:1275112)

Eurosport coverage was a bit shod. Those race directors need gunning down. I expected more from Da Matta...i don't know why.

Liz · 10 Apr 2005, 22:32 (Ref:1275113)

TSN blacked out the NBC broadcast somehow, and started 10 minutes late because of a baseball game. They missed many of the major passes while in commercial, and went off the air the minute Bourdais had pulled in, with not Word One from the drivers.

I was very disappointed in the quality of the coverage and hope they will do better next time, but TSN will probably show the race at 1:00 a.m. when it is pre-empted by Curling.

enemy-ace · 10 Apr 2005, 22:41 (Ref:1275126)

Could be better and some coverage from the rest of the field other than the front-runners would be nice. Compared to last season it was tons better though.

evo · 10 Apr 2005, 23:11 (Ref:1275141)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liz

TSN blacked out the NBC broadcast somehow, and started 10 minutes late because of a baseball game...

I saw the NBC coverage, and don't worry, they started the broadcast on lap 3 because they had to show the end of an arena football game that was already a foregone conclusion.

I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with the person here who said having half the races on network television was a good idea. They completely missed Tracy's first pass for the lead (on Junquiera) and went to commercial right before every other pass for the lead. If this is the kind of coverage were going to get all season I am very very afraid. Why couldn't they hang on 2 more minutes for an interview with the winner?

mp356a · 10 Apr 2005, 23:14 (Ref:1275143)

It was terrible on NBC. We already sent this letter to CART:

Guys,
We waited so long to get this season going and what do we get? A late start on TV (NBC) due to an Arena game. What's worse? They still put the commercials and CART-preview on before the race is joined "in progress".
The sound was terrible in the booth.
The coverage was so bad that we stopped watching and went outside to garden. We had to look online to see who won.
There was not enough time alloted to familiarize fans with the new drivers. We spent what little time we watched just trying to figure out who was in which car. There was no scrolling running order and we had to wait forever to see where out favorite drivers were running.
Once, when they ran a list, they overlaid it with an interview.
We actually prefer CART over F1 but you are sure making us work hard to watch this series.
We can not see how you expect new fans to watch such poor coverage.
Sincerely,
Michael & Christine P.
Norristown, PA

Mosport67 · 10 Apr 2005, 23:22 (Ref:1275145)

I really don't understand the timing of the commercials. We watch the pace car go round and round and then green then a commercial.

They missed way too much of the action today.

indycool · 10 Apr 2005, 23:41 (Ref:1275149)

I found the coverage to be very disjointed. That's a problem with the director. The booth would be telling us about something that was going on and the cameras would show something else....and we'd never see what bthey were talking about.

Other than Molson Indys past, this was Molson Sports and Entertainment's first try at producing a race. IMO, it wasn't a very good try.

suzmac · 11 Apr 2005, 00:10 (Ref:1275157)

I thought the coverage could have been better as well. I didn't like how they posted the running order and I didn't like that you couldn't tell what lap they were on. They didn't go back and show things that happened during the race either.

gttouring · 11 Apr 2005, 02:06 (Ref:1275180)

i was there in person, and Long beach city has really upped the ante in its making it a nicer place. the area around the track is full of restaruants and pubs and really is very clean moreso than in2003 for sure. the maze of fences outside of seating areas is maddening and the viewing is starngely hampered in many spots, however, the Jumbotron coverage with scrolling running oreder was good (botched for the trans-am race)
no big deal though, a nice charge by Bourdais and a nice pass and re passing between Junqueria and Tracy even Vasser led for a while but it was the usual three... the action wasn't really to great on track i don't think but the Push to pass or "P2P" and all is working pretty well as of late, the drift cars before the CC race were really awesome on a city circuit, around the fountain my choice spot was just smashing fun...
the trans am race was great, they filled the field to make like 30 cars race with local GT1 cars (called GTA in Trans-am speak now) and winston west cars, and ASA cars 2 of them infact...
wierd, but cool so many cars, so much action and tight racing (hairpin this time, by the jumbo tron and turn 9-10-11)

racefanatic · 11 Apr 2005, 02:12 (Ref:1275181)

I thought that having the race on NBC would be a great idea... but what a disappointment!!

It was painfully boring to have to watch the end of that Arena Football game just to make sure I didn't miss the beginning of the CC broadcast, then two minutes before the CC broadcast was supposed to start, they cut to the end of another game!!

And if missing the start wasn't bad enough, like a lot of you said, some of the major passes were made during commercial breaks. I was going crazy during the last commercial break because I was afraid they wouldn't show the end of the race either.

What really upset me was the fact that Arena Football took up the first 8 minutes of the CC broadcast, but then the CC broadcast ended with 3 minutes left! There was certainly time for an interview.

Terrible coverage overall, but the announcers did pretty well, and hopefully the next broadcast will be an improvement. I guess we should all just be happy that we got the chance to see it.

Tim Northcutt · 11 Apr 2005, 03:14 (Ref:1275192)

Another Series has alleviated that problem...you miss ZERO racing action, because they do a split screen during commericals...

But they get paid for their telecasts....and have advertisers who understand that race fans want to watch the race....

You would think that OWRS would pay the extra $$$ to do the same, since they are buying the time...

I'm not trolling...just speaking the truth...

Get with it, OWRS, and learn from what your competitors are doing...we would be much happier...

BTW...

I had to work a concert this afternoon, and didn't get home until 4:30 (CDT or actually EST, since we are not on Daylight Savings Time in Indiana)...

I watched nearly 10 minutes of "NBC Sports Update" from New York, when the damn race is going on!!!!!

and they are "paying" for this air time??? That stunk!!!!!

What a rippoff for the Series!!! Show us who won the games in other sports AFTER the race!!!

They bought the air time!!!!!

brightline · 11 Apr 2005, 03:36 (Ref:1275200)

I know that most of us are die hard or at least well versed in Champ Car, but I think that many of you are being really, really hard on the series we all really love. Personally, I think that the picture quality was much improved over spike tv, I know it looked spectacular on HDnet but the downconverted signal looked really grainy last season on Spike.

How quickly our memory fades of the pathetic MTV/Betelguese (spelling?) production crew last season. If you noticed at the end of the broadcast when they showed clips of last years Monterrey race, the cars looked like they were creeping along the track. The cars looked as they should at Long Beach, FAST. Molson also knows how to license music, something MTV obviously doesn't know how to do anymore...

As far as the race coverage, I was a little more than ticked at the start, but what are you going to do? NBC has thrown a lot of money into making the AFL successful. Also, there was no bonus AFL coverage in Tampa, it was the game that was on the entire time here, so they can't cut away to the race in some markets and not others. I thought the TV coverage was decent. Sure, there were errors, DD saying Indy Cars and KK having Jensen Motorsport under his name. Passes were missed, but hey at least we got to see them unlike last year, WHEN THEY WERE TAPE DELAYED! NBC sportsdesk: sucks but it comes with the territory...

Does the Molson crew have there work cut out for them, yes. Do they deserve such a harsh reaction, no. Did they do a bad job, not at all. Did they do a great job, not yet (key word being yet).

The announce team, did very well considering they are learning the new drivers, teams, liveries, and helmets at the same rate we are!

My overall rating for the broadcast B-

Better than average, better announce team than the IRL in St. Pete, much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much better than the Spike coverage last year. Bring on Mexico.

mountainstar · 11 Apr 2005, 05:49 (Ref:1275220)

I could tell Daly realized his mistake as soon as he said it. Can't blame him, after all these are the REAL Indycars, descended from the final generation of 1995.

I'm pretty surprised to the reaction to the broadcast. I liked it. Yes, there were some issues but nothing to get your panties in a wad over. I'd like to see more onboard camera views and some shots from the back of the field. I "grew up" with daly, fish and beekhuis, since they mostly started their broadcasting careers around the time I started watching racing as a kid, so I'm used to them and I thought they did an excellent job.

PaulSands · 11 Apr 2005, 07:43 (Ref:1275257)

I found the Europsort coverage really difficult to watch...picture quality was awful it was diffciult to differentiate cars. While I realise that there are differences between the UK & US TV systems it annoys me that I can watch the Superbowl and have a clear image but with Champcar it sucks, even cmpared to ALMS it's horrible..the technology is obviosly available. I can only assume that Champ Car only have eyes for a North American audience

Plus they missed the first two lead changes

rustyfan · 11 Apr 2005, 10:39 (Ref:1275366)

Quote:

Originally Posted by PaulSands

I found the Europsort coverage really difficult to watch...picture quality was awful it was diffciult to differentiate cars. While I realise that there are differences between the UK & US TV systems it annoys me that I can watch the Superbowl and have a clear image but with Champcar it sucks, even cmpared to ALMS it's horrible..the technology is obviosly available. I can only assume that Champ Car only have eyes for a North American audience.

There's not much Eurosport can do about a shoddy feed provided by NBC.

PaulSands · 11 Apr 2005, 10:44 (Ref:1275370)

I suppose they could chose not to take it unless it was improved...though I assume in the grand scheme of NBC they could care less

macdaddy · 11 Apr 2005, 11:58 (Ref:1275421)

Breaking away from green-flag racing to do a driver profile is very frustrating. And, as mentioned already, there was a lack of running order and lap counter.

Mid-race, the cameras seemed to follow Bourdais lap-after-lap, even though he was running alone, and there was some close racing going on behind him. McDonalds got their money's worth, but nobody else did.

I don't know who to blame - NBC, Molstar, or both.

macdaddy · 11 Apr 2005, 12:15 (Ref:1275433)

Liz... TSN is unable to have a network blacked out. I'm sure that if you channel-surfed you'd have found that it was also on NBC. The coverage would have been equally poor, though.

Mosport67 · 11 Apr 2005, 13:12 (Ref:1275469)

Quote:

Originally Posted by macdaddy

Liz... TSN is unable to have a network blacked out. I'm sure that if you channel-surfed you'd have found that it was also on NBC. The coverage would have been equally poor, though.

I surfed through and couldn't find the race on NBC. Only on the HD service which I don't get. TSN was the only option here.

macdaddy · 11 Apr 2005, 13:20 (Ref:1275475)

I find that surprising - I didn't think that a major network could be blacked out. We got the NBC coverage here in Chatham, I didn't bother to look and see if it was on TSN or not.

TedN · 11 Apr 2005, 14:26 (Ref:1275539)

The NBC Buffalo affiliate was showing a telethon yesterday from 4:00pm - 11:00 pm. That may be the reason some people here (myself included) did not see the race on NBC.

One thing about the TSN coverage, during the commercial break with 5 laps to go ... did anyone else notice that the advert for beer (Molson stuff I think) mentioned the word "CART" instead of Champ Car?

Ted

Mosport67 · 11 Apr 2005, 15:07 (Ref:1275574)

That is exactly what happened to me. A telethon instead of the race.

Jordi · 11 Apr 2005, 15:28 (Ref:1275591)

The Eurosport coverage was fine to me. After a year of not seeing the bloody thing, anything is better, really!

Snrub · 11 Apr 2005, 16:24 (Ref:1275656)

I was surprised that Daily didn't annoy me more.

He wasn't good, but he was remotely tolerable.

As is fairly typical with Canadian cable/satellite providers, they put Canadian coverage over top of a US channel. In other words if you watched NBC you saw TSN coverage, ads, etc. At least that was the case with ExpressVu.

In concept I really liked the IRL side by side thing, but in practice I don't find it super usefull. Perhaps it's because my distance vision stinks, but I found it difficult to tell what was going on. Perhaps it is just that the ads are so intrusive. Champ Car is already ponying up for better coverage, I don't know that it would be wise to do side by side. Nascar doesn't do it.

According to SpeedTV raceday attendance was in the 70-75k range. Perhaps we'll get an official number from the series. NBC said it was over 100k on the day and 200k for the weekend, but somehow I don't believe them anymore than I do ABC when they said 70k @ St Petes.

Does anyone know what the TV ratings were?

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