Champ Car Racing

[billn]

"New Champ Car TV partners to be announced March 9th At a 2:30 PM PST press conference in Long Beach on March 9th, OWRS will announce their new TV partners for 2004, rumored to be SPIKE TV and HD Net."

If this is true, I certainly hope TSNHD picks up the HDNET feed, like they did last year for the Road America race. Let's bug them like hell to get our money's worth.

[StreetPreacher]

Was it TSNHD that carried the Road America race last year? I seem to remember it being a free view on the special events PPV channel (on Expressvu anyway).

However I don't care who carries it, as long as we get to see it!

-Sp

[Nels Stewart]

I certainly hope TSNHD picks up the HDNET feed, like they did last year for the Road America race.

TSN-HD wasn't yet up and running when HDNet broadcast last year's Road America race, although I, and I'm sure others here, emailed them to suggest this would be a good pickup with BEV to hype the imminent launch. Well, BEV ended up picking up the broadcast as a free PPV anyways, and TSN was nowhere in the picture. Kindof a portent of things to come?

If this rumor is true, hopefully TSN picks up the HD ball this time.

[steve 8282]

I do hope someone gets it, wit hthe cost of setting up enough HD camaras to cover a road course I think we wil be waiting a few years yet.

[james99]

You mean you don't expect the consumer friendly CRTC to offer HDNET by the date of the first race :lol:

As long as HDNET has it, i'll be happy :lol:

[TheBrainKills]

Dam this pisses me off, I want HDNET. :evil:

Is there any news on the CCTA's application to the CRTC, Dec 8 2003 they asked them to look at it again. I tried to find it in the CRTC website but they make it impossible to find.

[billn]

Here's a synopsis of the announcements made today on autoracing1.com:

"All 2004 races on Spike TV, formerly TNN. All races will be at 4:00 PM on a Sunday no matter where you live. There will be a 1/2 hour pre-race show on Sunday's as well.

All races, qualifying, practice, interviews, pre-race, etc. will be shown live on HD Net also. Spike TV is in 86 million homes on basic cable.

Modeled after NASCAR, for $9.95 per month, All races, qualifying, practice, interviews, pre-race, etc. will be shown live on the internet anywhere in the world. First month will be free. Global Media Services, also out of NY City, will do the internet services.

A story previously broke here on AutoRacing1.com, a multi-Emmy award winning production company called Betelgeuse will do all the TV production work.

In the booth will be Tommy Kendal and Bob Jenkins. Derek Daly will be the pit reporter. Alex Tagliani's wife, Bronte, will do lifestyle reporting.

The crispness and quality of all formats, including regular TV, will be better because high definition <a href="http://get-faster.com?go=cameras" onmouseover="window.status = 'goto: cameras';return 1" onmouseout="window.status=''">cameras</a> are being used for everything.

The wide-format of HD will allow additional graphics and statistics to be shown to the viewer.

24 one-half hour shows will be produced to show pre-race and at other times.

Perhaps the most important aspect - Viacom will market the Champ Car series and the broadcast on all its properties, including CBS, MTV, etc."

The question remains what will TSN do, if anything, to pick up the HD feed. The more feedback they get from us early in the game, the better our chances.

[Nels Stewart]

The question remains what will TSN do, if anything, to pick up the HD feed. The more feedback they get from us early in the game, the better our chances.

I don't have much faith in TSN, but I've already emailed them and will continue to do so. They're gonna have to start stepping up with real HD programming on TSN-HD if they expect to get my $1.99. Billiards in the middle of the night, and ONE hockey game picked up from ESPN just doens't cut it.

[Paul Clancy]

Did regular tsn carry F1 aus race? I saw it on speed so no blackout. This would be sad for tsn to lose the rights to but as long as we can see it on speed we're ok.

[Nels Stewart]

Did regular tsn carry F1 aus race?

Yup. Although we missed the start because the curling ran long :cry:

[james99]

HDNET has not released a press release for this. Is it official yet?

[billn]

The announcement came late yesterday in Long Beach from Champ Car. No doubt HDNet will have their information out in the near future.

[57]

Originally Posted by Nels Stewart

Yup. Although we missed the start because the curling ran long :cry:

I expected that and taped it at 8AM the next morning and watched it in about an hour in the afternoon. On F1 days, I don't turn the radio on at home until I watch the race (if I care, which is less and less recently)

Did Speedvision (or whatever it's called now) have the race Saturday night at around 9:30PM as advertized (Rogers 48 )?

[billn]

Here are some further announcements from autoracing1.com.

"HD Net to telecast all USA and Canadian Champ Car races live Champ Cars are among the most technologically-advanced race cars in North America, and will now be seen in 2004 in an equally-advanced television broadcast format courtesy of HDNet.

Champ Car today announced that HDNet, the first full-time high-definition cable and satellite network in the U.S., will be the exclusive home of live HDTV telecasts of the 2004 Champ Car World Series. Beginning with the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 18, fans can catch the turbocharged racing action of the Champ Car World Series on HDNet in cutting-edge 1080i HDTV.

“We are very pleased that HDNet has licensed the rights to air Champ Car World Series racing action,” said Champ Car President Dick Eidswick. “Our fans have always been among the first to adopt new technology, so high-definition programming is a great fit for our series and our fans.”

In addition to the high-speed racing action of the Champ Car World Series, the HDNet telecasts, which will be produced by the award-winning Betelgeuse Productions, will also feature live final-round qualifying events and live coverage of the Motorock TransAm Tour at Champ Car venues.

HDNet became the first network to broadcast an auto race in high-definition format last year when it aired the Mario Andretti Grand Prix at Road America Presented by Briggs & Stratton. The network used 16 high-definition cameras and two HD mobile units to capture all the action of the race won by Bruno Junqueira.

“HDNet is thrilled to add Champ Car racing to our network,” said Mark Cuban, co-founder and president of HDNet. “Thanks to the incredible picture and sound quality, our audience will feel the excitement in every turn and experience every pit stop like they were there. Once again, HDNet is leading the television industry in applying HDTV to yet another deserving sport.”
The schedule below lists the live 2004 Champ Car World Series telecasts on HDNet (all times are Eastern and are subject to change). A complete schedule is available at www.hd.net or at www.cart.com.
Date Event Time (ET)
Sunday, April 18 Grand Prix of Long Beach 4:00 p.m.
Saturday, June 5 Milwaukee 9:00 p.m.
Sunday, June 20 Portland 4:00 p.m.
Saturday, July 3 Cleveland 1:00 p.m.
Sunday, July 11 Molson Indy Toronto 1:00 p.m.
Sunday, July 25 Molson Indy Vancouver 4:00 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 8 Road America, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin 2:00 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 15 Grand Prix of Denver 3:00 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 29 Montreal 1:00 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 12 Grand Prix of Monterey 4:00 p.m."

[Nels Stewart]

It's going to be REAL interesting to see how TSN handles this. It's my understanding that the SD coverage of CART races on SPIKE will be tape-delayed to run in a consistent 4 PM timeslot on Sundays. That means the only LIVE coverage available will be from HDNet. If TSN plans to continue live broadcasts of CART, they'll have to deal with HDNet. If they take their HD channel seriously, they'll cut a deal for the HD feed and then downconvert for the SD channel.

I've already emailed TSN, attaching the press release from cart.com. I urge others to do the same. We've got to send them the message that billiards and dog shows just don't cut it for their HD channel.

Curiously, HDNet still doesn't have the announcement on their site. Maybe they're hedging to see if CART survives this week? Geez, everytime I go to hd.net, I wish we could get that channel up here...