• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

IRL race moved to ESPN Classic; IRL fans upset

J

Jul

Guest
On Sunday 8/5/07, The IRL (Indy Racing League) race at Michigan was delayed for nearly 5 hours due to rain. ESPN apparently decided to move the coverage to ESPN Classic at 4 PM EDT where the race aired live on that channel until its conclusion. Yesterday because ESPN2 was airing the men's and women's championship matches of 2 tennis events live at 3 and 5 PM EDT respectively and the network decided to stick with Tennis on ESPN2. The problem is that ESPN Classic is not widely accessible like ESPN and ESPN2 is and a lot of people didn't get to see the race and many people are angry with ESPN for moving the race to a channel that is not accessible to every home and every cable system in the USA and with IRL too. I would like to get your thoughts on what happened here and what ESPN should do to prevent this from happening again? To see what the IRL fans are saying about this: http://www.indycar.com/news/talkback-topic.php If you want to contact the IRL about what happened go to: http://www.indycar.com/contact/ and ESPN http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?page=contact/espntv
 
ESPN isn't going to stop using Classic as an overfill, as it is they only use it when ESPN2 is already covering something live (I believe they've done this a couple times this week with Barry Bonds and Giants games)

so i guess more cable companies are going to have to pick up Classic because ESPN will start using it more and more as an overfill area the more ESPN2 becomes like it's corperate cousin
 
This could be part of a push to get more carriage by pissing people off who then gripe to their cable providers.
Now what are your thoughts on this?
 
I think it's more of a case of ESPN dumping IRL to Classic for something that they knew would get better ratings. Tennis typically gets a 2.0 or 2.5, while the IRL (outside of the Indy 500) struggles to get a 1.0. Simple economics.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom