ABC affiliates pre-empt NASCAR coverage
Quote selected text Published October 16th, 2007 in NASCAR News
This is the first season of the ESPN production crew bringing the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series to the ABC broadcast affiliates. These local stations comprise the system of TV delivery that NASCAR mandated for the “Chase For The Championship.” These races must be on broadcast TV nationwide. At least, that was the idea.
Saturday night, the NEXTEL Cup broadcast from Lowe’s Motor Speedway began at 7PM with a thirty minute edition of NASCAR Countdown, the pre-race show. This is not a distinctly separate program, but basically a thirty minute lead-in to the event where interviews and features are added from the Infield Studio by Suzy Kolber and her team. Brent Musburger was on-hand to “host” the festivities.
This race has been on the 2007 NASCAR schedule since it was released in late 2006. The ABC Sports schedule had been out for months. The ESPN on ABC production team had a beautiful night in the greater Charlotte area with absolutely no rain in sight.
Musburger’s familiar refrain of “you are looking live” came across right on time as the flashy opening of the program recapped The NEXTEL Chase for the Championship to this point. It was going to be a big night in NASCAR, and a big night for ABC.
Kolber welcomed ESPN’s analyst Rusty Wallace and commentator Brad Daugherty to the Infield Studio. After race highlights from Talladega, both Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon were interviewed live. Over the next thirty minutes the top drivers talked about their cars, the analysts talked about the race, and even Bank of America President appeared to back-up their multi-million dollar commitment to this event.
But, things were very different for one key area of the nation. Broadcast TV stations are talked about by their DMA’s. That stands for Designated Market Area, and represents their ranking in the country among the one hundred and fifty markets.
Los Angeles is number two. Slightly behind New York, the LA market is key for both advertisers and TV ratings. With slightly over 5.6 million households, this area is a heavy hitter for both the local TV stations and the broadcast TV networks.
Saturday night, as the ESPN on ABC gang talked about the upcoming race and reviewed the happenings at Talladega, the Los Angeles ABC affiliate KABC pre-empted this telecast. It was time for Eyewitness News. Trapped between a college football game and a NASCAR race, the Program Director decided to drop Los Angeles out of the thirty minute NASCAR pre-race show and do the news.
The only thing was, this executive apparently did not tell ESPN or ABC or anyone else who really mattered. When the full newscast was over, KABC ran several minutes of commercials, and then just “slammed” into the live network telecast. They actually joined it right as the command to start engines was given.
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I wish they would still do that! I am sick of pre race shows! Just drop the green!
While I realize that this was not ESPN’s fault, I really wish that NASCAR would stay on NBC or FOX. I am very disappointed with ESPN’s coverage. I say let’s move Monday Night Football BACK to ABC too! The only thing I enjoy about the pre-race show is the prayer, the National Anthem, and the fly over. I always have my TV on Spped until that time. ESPN never talks about anything worth listening to. It’s almost like they have first semester interns doing the commentary.
While I realize that this was not ESPN’s fault, I really wish that NASCAR would stay on NBC or FOX. I am very disappointed with ESPN’s coverage. I say let’s move Monday Night Football BACK to ABC too! The only thing I enjoy about the pre-race show is the prayer, the National Anthem, and the fly over. I always have my TV on Speed until that time. ESPN never talks about anything worth listening to. It’s almost like they have first semester interns doing the commentary.
Ok… sorry about the multiple posts. I kept receiving an error message that told me to resubmit!.
Sorry about that Tony….we’re having a few issues we’re sorting out.
I agree with the comments above…ABC and ESPN provide horrible coverage of the races! it seems like they pay more attention to the stick and ball sports instead of what is happening on the racetrack. Fox and NBC all the way…
ESPN and ABC arent at fault in this one, and I have to say while I’ve never seen it done to NASCAR I have seen other sports and nationwide programing get broken into by the local news. BUT only is something MAJOR is happening. But that is just one of the risks of a sport being on ABC/CBS/NBC/CW/MyNetwork/FOX.
I could Live with the 30 minutes of pre-race but 45 minutes to an hour is too long
I would however like to see the post-race interviews. For the past two weeks
ABC has cut it short just after the race winner is interviewed in victory lane.
That ticks me off!!If they are gonna cover a race it should be covered in full
from pre-race to post-race!!!
I can’t stand the ABC/ESPN coverage. They have no idea what they are talking about. Keep it on FOX and NBC.
How about when they switched the coverage of the Dega race to ESPN? They wonder WHY ratings are down??
It’s LA…what do you expect? They have to squeeze in their hourly ‘Where is Paris Hilton shopping at this precise moment’ update! After all, they have to cover the news!!
Tony-a wrote:
That didnt happen at my house.
L.A. was more intrested in showing Britney Spears wrecking cars than showing Michael Waltrip wrecking cars. Mikey is the one with more hair.
I think the coverage on ABC/ESPN is terrible. Just last week I heard one of the announcers say he thought he had mispronounced Aric Almirola, when he didn’t… now come on.. he’s been around long enough they should be able to get that right. What happens next year when there are even bigger and more difficult names to say? It seems to me that there are more commercials than during coverage of the first half of the season.
This is the “Chase” and in my opinion this part should be covered by the better network and that is NOT ABC/ESPN. At least FOX appreciates the drivers, ALL of them not JUST the winner and second place finisher. Right now we’re lucky that we even get to see the winner give an interview because ABC/ESPN doesn’t bother airing anything else. I also resent that ANYONE was ever told not to celebrate too much after winning because they were short of time. Busch race or not… how many ESPN channels are there now? And what is with them switching between several different networks because the race “runs late”. Is that what they do when a Football game is in overtime? “Now we’re going to ESPN2, Now you can see the finish on ESPN classic.” Ohh no that wouldn’t go over very well would it?
They wanted NASCAR back then appreciate the viewers… take the good with the bad and get over the fact that red flags and rain delays happen. They do it for every other sport, do it for the NASCAR fans!
justin4roush wrote:
Now that’s funny!!
Sounding like an echo here but coverage is awful at best. Personally I would also like to see Driver’s Intro’s also. I am also tired of people ’singing’ the National Anthem and making Roseanne sound good and racing being compared to stick and ball.
Lots of empty seats, coverage is down, get real NASCAR wake up!
Great post Michelle! I’m with you on how crazy it is that they can’t pronounce the names. They always
add an “n” to Zipadelli and say, “Zip-in-delli”. THAT DRIVES ME CRAZY! If they were talking about a football
game, do you think they would get away with not saying the coach’s name properly?
I agree with the ABC diss, but, being around a long, long time,
I think the whole NASCAR deal is going down the drain. Other than
the Allison brothers, (and that was very seldom) when did you
hear the phrase “he LET him go by” ?
Bring back the good ole boy racing!!!
Something wrong with AutoRacingSport.com on my computer. Cannot be read due to words missing on both sides. News is not centered, not my computer problem. Please respond. Thak you!!
Extremely peeved that there is not some station that you pass us off on to watch the race….avid fans….and interruptions for fire update is one thing but 24 coverage is stupid …..you could really have a back up and I hope your ears getted burned with Nascar notes….I cannot believe you have no alternatives. Your coverage of Nascar to begin with is extremely lacking and I really wish they would stay with FOX…..who by the way is running a football game today and smart enough to show updates through the game, thank you FOX.
unhappy from Ventura