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for NASCAR fans
Fox revamps race channel to air trackside stories
By Gabriel Spitzer
Put NASCAR fans and Formula 1 fans in the same room and they'll probably tussle over the remote.
Most likely the NASCAR fans will win.
In motorsports, audiences for NASCAR, Formula 1, CART and World Rally share little in common, and the NASCAR audience is by far the largest.
The problem for Speedvision, the six-year-old cable network dedicated to things that go fast, is that it has built up audiences in the smaller motorsports but has never gained enough NASCAR programming to attract that far larger audience.
That could change next month.
On Feb. 4, the day after the Super Bowl, Speedvision will become the Speed Channel, as new owner Fox relaunches the network with lots of NASCAR-related fanfare.
Fox bought Speedvision last July. A year-and-a-half earlier, it had bought rights to telecast NASCAR races, and in its first year went on to generate a 27 percent ratings increase in its key male demos.
Now, Fox is hoping to parley its success with NASCAR into a splashy, re-branded Speed Channel.
The strategy will be none too subtle.
"Somewhere around 50 to 60 percent of our noon-to-midnight programming will be NASCAR-related," says Jim Liberatore, president of Speed Channel.
By "NASCAR-related" Liberatore means that the channel will broadcast few actual races, with most of the coverage about NASCAR, the races and the personalities behind the wheel and in the pits.
The majority of the actual races will continue to be broadcast on Fox.
"We will be the place for behind-the-scenes and in-depth programming. Promotionally it makes a lot of sense," says Liberatore.
"Our research says that 72 percent of NASCAR fans don’t get and don’t think they want Speedvision, and there are 75 million NASCAR enthusiasts in the country. If we do the programming correctly, that’s where we’ll see our growth."
But is programming about NASCAR enough to draw in the hard-core racing fans? Apparently, it is.
"I’ve talked to NASCAR fans who have already switched to digital cable, just to get the Speed Channel," says Mike McCarthy, editor of MotorsportsTV.com, an independent news web site.
"Anything to do with TV and NASCAR is one of the few winning strategies left right now. That’s going to draw a lot more people. It will certainly improve their carriage situation, and it will improve their ratings as NASCAR fans tune in."
At present, Speedvision reaches about 45 million households. But with most of its programming focused on Formula 1, World Rally, CART and motorcycle racing, it has not drawn NASCAR-sized crowds.
"Speedvision right now is probably a midrange-level blip on the radar screen for most fans," says McCarthy.
But Fox expects that to change. Liberatore says his sights are set on the 70 million to 80 million range in terms of household penetration.
"The old Speedvision viewer came from the real motor aficionados. Now we still have that audience, but with things like World Rally we get a younger demo, and the AMA Supercross [motorcycle racing] is a younger demo. And of course the NASCAR audience will be almost completely new," says Liberatore.
Another gift the network got from Fox is its first dedicated sales team. In the past, Speedvision’s sales were integrated with the Outdoor Life Network.
"The Speed Channel has one of the highest viewer-per-household rates for male viewers. Male viewers are the hardest people to reach. With that huge asset, to share that would not have made any sense. To me, you can’t do this now without a dedicated sales staff," Liberatore says.
To head the sales staff, the Speed Channel tapped Richy Glassberg, former head of online rep firm Phase2Media and before that a fixture in the sales departments at Turner and Viacom.
Glassberg says he hopes to take full advantage of the Speed Channel’s new adopted parent.
"Advertisers now can buy units in the races on Fox and also get some really cool yearlong sponsorships with us. There are some crossover advertisers who do CART, NASCAR and Formula 1, so we can do much broader packages," he says.
"We have already closed four great deals like that, and we have about 15 to 20 more in the works—multiple networks, multiple platforms, own a show and get promotional packages."
Glassberg is also looking to NASCAR to bring in new advertising categories that have not bought time on Speedvision in the past.
"It will be hugely broader. We’ve done analysis on the 122 sponsors of NASCAR, CART, Formula 1 and World Rally. Speedvision had about 20 percent of them on the air. We’re already up to about 40 percent, and we haven’t even gotten into the year yet."
The challenge now, say observers, is for the Speed Channel to take full advantage of its NASCAR programming without pushing away the audience the network has built through other racing brands.
"One thing I’ve learned is that whatever brand of racing you’re into is the best, and all the other fans of other racing are completely out to lunch," says McCarthy.
"I think the key thing for the Speed Channel is that it needs the NASCAR blocked programming, but it seems to have done it without alienating the other fans out there. It seems to have struck a balance."
January 11, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-Gabriel Spitzer is a staff writer for Media Life.
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