Extremely interesting article about producing a race

[TexasRaceLady]

http://www.frontstretch.com/mneff/12745/

I'm not going to copy the entire article, but I found this paragraph particularly informative.

As a race progresses, the time that commercials air is determined on the fly based on the activity on the track. There are people in the production truck, utilizing different technologies to try and anticipate the caution flags, the fuel windows, and the duration of the caution flags to try and decide when blocks of commercials are aired. When a caution flag is in effect, ESPN attempts to show the pitstops during that caution, and then air commercials before the race goes back to green. With the help of NASCAR race control the production team tries their best to determine how long a given caution period is going to take and time out the commercials to return to action before the green flag flies. The odds of them catching the green on the super speedways is far greater than on short tracks simply because they can let the commercial run to completion before coming back for the green when they are informed of one lap to go. At a track like Martinsville, if they are informed of one lap to go, there is only a window of 25-30 seconds before the race is going to go back to green. If ESPN breaks out of a commercial before it is completed, they have to rerun the entire commercial at a later point in the race, in addition to the commercials planned for that later point. As soon as they miss a commercial, it throws off the rest of the allocation of commercials, and the air time for racing has to be reduced to make up for it.

I put in the bold print.

 

[buckaroo]

I've never seen so much griping about the broadcasts as I've seen in the last couple of years. Well, really since they started the TV package. But the networks aren't working for peanuts and they have to make money or there won't be a telecast. So, they have to run commercials and they have to price those commercials so that 1, they can get customers to purchase said commercials and 2, they have to price said commercials so that they can get customers. If they price the commercials too high, they will have fewer customers and that could result in a huge loss for the network. If they price the commercials lower, they could end up with a good profit, but that means being away from the action on the track too much.

Racing is unlike most other sports in that there isn't any pre-timed "time-outs" that they can utilize for commercials. So they have to do what they believe is best for all involved.

NASCAR today is just assumed by most fans to be covered, yet for many of us old fahts that have been around for a long time, we can remember the times when we had to wait a week or two to see a race, or maybe we would get to see part of a race before something else came on. When ESPN began their coverage of NASCAR, even then they didn't cover every race. But that got it all started and those of us who lived far away from any of the tracks were tickled to now be able to see most of the races. We didn't have anything to compare the coverage, so we were just glad that we could see the racing action. Not so now. We've had years and years of coverage to compare and we are quick to complain. I have said this for quite a while now...if you don't like what you see, stop watching it, as apparently more and more people are doing. But for now, I'm just glad that I can still get to see each and every race on the circuit...as least for now.

 

[Digger]

Cable being manditory in 2009...

I've never seen so much griping about the broadcasts as I've seen in the last couple of years. Well, really since they started the TV package. But the networks aren't working for peanuts and they have to make money or there won't be a telecast. So, they have to run commercials and they have to price those commercials so that 1, they can get customers to purchase said commercials and 2, they have to price said commercials so that they can get customers. If they price the commercials too high, they will have fewer customers and that could result in a huge loss for the network. If they price the commercials lower, they could end up with a good profit, but that means being away from the action on the track too much.

Racing is unlike most other sports in that there isn't any pre-timed "time-outs" that they can utilize for commercials. So they have to do what they believe is best for all involved.

NASCAR today is just assumed by most fans to be covered, yet for many of us old fahts that have been around for a long time, we can remember the times when we had to wait a week or two to see a race, or maybe we would get to see part of a race before something else came on. When ESPN began their coverage of NASCAR, even then they didn't cover every race. But that got it all started and those of us who lived far away from any of the tracks were tickled to now be able to see most of the races. We didn't have anything to compare the coverage, so we were just glad that we could see the racing action. Not so now. We've had years and years of coverage to compare and we are quick to complain. I have said this for quite a while now...if you don't like what you see, stop watching it, as apparently more and more people are doing. But for now, I'm just glad that I can still get to see each and every race on the circuit...as least for now.

... will help though. There will be almost no advantage to airing the races on ABC whereas they could air it on TNT and they'd still reach the same audience.

I liked NBC because they were informative, whereas FOX was a joke. But, I don't see the races being on ABC for long.

 

[buckaroo]

ABC is not a cable network and can be seen by more viewers that TNT, and as long as ABC is paying for their contract, I believe they have the last say as to whether or not they broadcast the races.