Champ Car TV production to change again?
04/11/06 After Sunday's Long Beach race the internet discussion forums are abuzz with negative comments about the quality of the TV broadcast this year. We received these letters:
Dear AutoRacing1.com, I am very disappointed with your response to Sunday's Champ Car race TV coverage. The TV broadcast was abominable! It looked like the work of a high school student's project for an electronic media course. Meaningless conversations. Mindless cutting from cars racing each other to single cars cruising down the track leaving announcers stranded in mid sentence. Airing mindless blather when racing was happening on track and then watching cars circulate under yellow. One significant problem is too many on air people and the consequent push to get all the prerecorded pieces on regardless of the reduction in broadcast time due to football broadcast overruns. Racing is difficult to broadcast at the best of times and punishes incompetence relentlessly. You should too! George Daszkowski
Another writes, Last night I finally watched the LBGP race which I recorded over the weekend. I would have liked to see a more exciting race for broadcast TV, but what really made me cringed was the new TV production work. I know CCWS is out to promote its drivers, but the cheesy driver poses during the opening telecast, reminds me of something turned out by a high school radio and TV class. It looked very second rate. Didn't CCWS sign with a new TV production company over the off season? Is this the best they can do? What happened to the fast pace cutaways and cool graphics? This seemed like a step back not a step forward. If CCWS want to attract new audience on the network TV, they are definitely going to need to do better than this. If I was a casual TV viewer I know this would not draw me in. Nathan Brophy, Dallas, TX
Dear George and Nathan, Though we predicted this would be an issue below, no one wanted to believe us. With that said, it is their first Champ Car TV production so they have two more strikes (races) before we can declare them out of their league. Hopefully things will improve by the next race. The 0.6 overnight rating, which is sure to drop for the finals, is another indicator. That's the lowest "network" TV overnight rating in CART/Champ Car history.
They did save $150K by not hiring Jack Graham back. Jack of course is the reason why Champ Car TV broadcasts had improved last year and everyone was generally happy. Bad move from our perspective, but what do we know about TV, right? To be fair, the helicopter shots added a lot to the broadcast, so that was a good improvement this year. Mark C.
01/14/06 A reader asks, Dear AutoRacing1.com, Why did Champ Car switch production companies again when last year the TV broadcasts were better than they have been in a long time? John Mickle, Camden, NJ
Dear John, We are not privy to why they made the switch, but you can bet money was one factor. John Mullin and his Mullin Production Group have produced the Atlantic Series races for years, so they know racing. Our concern is that John Mullin is a cable TV producer, not a network TV producer. One reason last year's broadcasts were better was because Jack Graham was the producer.
Jack has years of experience as a network TV producer and that is why the Champ Car broadcasts were markedly better last year. As we understand it, John Mullin is going to be both the Executive Producer and the Producer. So Champ Car is going to step the quality of their broadcasts back to cable TV quality rather than spend another $150K and have Jack Graham be the producer and John Mullin the Executive Producer. Graham should be working for Mullin and produce the actual broadcasts to the same network TV quality we saw last year. The Executive Producer's job should be to make sure everything else comes together, people and bills get paid, etc. and leave the actual race show production to someone like Jack Graham. The worse thing Champ Car can have happen now is to take a step backward in the quality of their TV broadcasts. Mark C.
01/11/06 This story/rumor, broke by AutoRacing1.com back in November, is now 'fact.' See story on Hot News page.
12/13/05 Several people have contacted us about the fact that Champ Car still has not made a decision on who will do the TV Production for them in 2006. Bad. Very bad. The sooner TV production contracts are in place the sooner the production company or Champ Car can sell to potential sponsors things like the neat cable-cam that you saw above the pits in Surfers this year. Champ Car could have that at every race if the production company has time to sell it to an advertiser. Ditto for additional in-car cameras.
Want three more cars equipped with in-car cameras? Well that takes money and the money comes from a sponsor whose logos appear in the live-feed. Want neat graphics on the screen that portray great information to the viewer? Guess what, that takes money and time to implement.
The fact that Champ Car is dragging their feet on picking one of the three production companies we mentioned below is alarming. The more time the production company has, the better the end result will be. Recall how horrible the TV production was the years CART/Champ Car waited until the 11th hour. Mark C.
11/09/05 This year for the first time Champ Car fans have been happy with the quality of the TV broadcasts. After years of miscues and shoddy work, they finally got it right this year. All that could be about to change. AutoRacing1.com has learned that Champ Car could be about to toss out the best TV production group it ever had.
Why? Because at the end of November Molson Sports and Entertainment no longer exists and TV Broadcast Production Director Claude Briere and all his people and contractors are out of a job. Briere had Jack Graham overseeing the TV production at the track, and Graham has years of network TV experience, and it showed. We hear that Briere is in the process of starting his own company with all the same people.
Our sources tell us that Champ Car is aiming to open the TV production for bid between Briere, Terry Lingner (who once did the '02 and '03 Champ Car broadcasts, but did the IRL the last two years) and John Mullen Production Group (who did the Atlantic Series TV). We hear that Linger is not doing the IRL anymore, and we don't know if they quit or were fired.
Word is that new Champ Car TV boss Mark Reilly is leaning toward Terry Lingner Production but we hear the race promoters don't want to see Champ Car change yet again because they liked this year's TV production quality.