Re: San Francisco Speedvision

[George Graves <gmgraves@domain.elided>]

on 7/2/02 9:07 AM, alfa-digest at owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided wrote:

> Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 08:55:59 -0700 (PDT)
> From: "D. Umale" <dsp8@domain.elided>
> Subject: San Francisco Speedvision
> 
> Looks like someone decided to make Speedvision a premier channel right during
> the F1 season.
> 
> Then again I wasn't too pleased with the NASCAR merger.
> 
> It was fun while it lasted.
> 
> 
> Darryl Umale
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> 
> ------------------------------

I know what you mean about the NASCAR thing, I just don't get it. If one has
access to a C-band satellite system, one will notice that Fox sports owns
literally DOZENS of satellite channels (or transponders as they are more
correctly known) many of which are only used occasionally. On top of that,
many more of them are labeled 'Fox Sports Channels' and they ALSO run NASCAR
programming most of the day, every day. So one wonders why they had to buy
(for millions, and consequently ruin) SpeedVision by turning it into the
"NASCAR Channel" when they have so many satellite channels already that they
could have made into the NASCAR Channel, and could have left SpeedVision
alone. Speaking of "not getting it" I really do NOT understand the current
fascination with NASCAR. I can't imagine any more boring racing and "Speed"
runs 12 hours worth of NASCAR programming a DAY. How can there be so much?
And more importantly, how could there be an audience for that much NASCAR?
Add to it the NASCAR coverage that Fox runs on its other sports channels
(sometimes in tandem, redundantly, with "Speed" channel) and it would seem
to me that the saturation point would have been reached long ago! As for
other kinds of programming, The World Rallye Championship is well done, but
you can tell how important it is to them by the fact that they run it at
11:00 PM Eastern Standard time. Formula 1 coverage is good, but they put no
real work into it. They just relay feeds from the hosting country and David
Hobbs and Bob Varsha aren't even really there. They're sitting in easy
chairs in a studio somewhere on the east coast watching monitors and
drinking beer (so it sounds sometimes). I suspect that both the World Rallye
stuff and the F1 coverage will go away when current contracts are up along
with Lemans coverage and everything else like it. After all, the European
sedan races went away (excellent racing, I thought) when Fox took over and I
suspect that all other non-NASCAR related programming will eventually follow
suite. Since this season is probably (if one believes what one reads) the
last for F1 anyway, so you won't be missing much. Like you said, it was fun
while it lasted.  
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