It was interesting watching the debut of "Wrecked" a couple of weeks ago. Speed has been hyping this show for months and I thought it might actually prove kind of interesting. In some ways it is better than I had hoped; in some ways it is worse (why does every "reality" show focus on a ridiculous, invented blowhard?).

But it was interesting watching how Speed marketed it. "New show!" "Don't miss the first episode!" But the best was, "Tune in Thursday!" Why, exactly? They showed 2 new shows on Thursday, then re-ran that hour what, a half a dozen times? Then there were 2 new shows the next Thursday, re-ran as an hour again and again. Have they run a marathon of all 4 shows yet? It's inevitable.

People make a note to tune into and watch great shows: It's how you build an audience. M*A*S*H, Seinfeld, Friends -- geez, The Fugitive . . . all had regular time slots and people looked forward to tuning in, even after the invention of VCRs and now DVRs. It's what get talked about at the water cooler the next day. Speed, on the other hand, takes a new concept and then immediately waters it down to a watery gruel. There are episodes of Pinks that are kind of interesting (but none of that stupid biker family in Texas) but where do you find them? My digital channel guide tells me when a show is new and when it is a repeat, and there are entire nights on Speed when every single show is a re-run . . . and that block is itself re-run the same night!

The result is that, after watching Despain on Sunday night, my TV doesn't get tuned to Speed until Friday (truck or F1 racing) or Sunday, for Raceday. My TV was stuck on Speedvision, but Speed has limited its schedule so much that it just doesn't show anything interesting, and shows it's own shows until you can mute the sound and speak every line of dialogue. If Speed doesn't respect it's product, there's no reason why I should. And to those TV moguls who program Speed but know nothing about racing who will say "It's the only way we can afford to produce new shows," I say cough up a buck or two (instead of thousands) and run tape-delayed foreign racing series at night (including your own Touring Car and GT series) and give us what we watch Speed for: Racing.

Until then, I'll catch the myriad of Wrecks re-runs whenever I'm bored and whenever they're reasonable new. And marking Thursday night with a star just ain't gonna happen.

welcome to the (ignored) club my friend.

you said it yourself, money means more to these execs than the opinions of their (educated) viewers

Never seen it. Doubt I will.

Wrecked, who cares. Who's watching this crap. Same with Pinks. Speed needs more "racing" shows, give Despain and Miller and Varsha more airtime. Please, with American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance over for the season I need something to watch until new episodes of Top Gear and Overhaulin come back. lol. Plus, I'll be watching the new Knight Rider in September.

It's a Speed exec mindset. The simple reality is that there is nothing cheaper to produce on TV than talking-head shows. Even if Speed is too cheap to pay for the 800-calls and the satellite links, a half hour of Despain/Hobbs/Varsha -- pick a name -- interviewing a driver, owner, sponsor, manager, promotor, or crew chief using 2 cameras costs almost nothing. The real killer is post-production costs, and there aren't any for live talk shows.

The American/cable broadcast rights to foreign racing series must be almost nothing: It isn't as if there is any competitive bidding from other networks. Some time ago in Canada, we used to get live coverage of F1 on TSN and taped coverage from a different feed on CBC that night. They did the same thing for a while with Champ Car, too. Nobody is cheaper than a Canadian broadcaster, particularly the private networks, and they wouldn't have been doubling up on each other if there were big bucks involved. IMHO part of it is that Speed is working hard to show that they're different, and so better, than Speedvision (hey guys, there's a reason why you bought Speedvision instead of starting from scratch), and they want to see themselves as jet-setting program developers instead of "just" a sports feed re-broadcaster.

There is nothing "speed" about tow-trucks (isn't there another tow-truck series, on A&E;maybe?) or those stupid Texas hicks running a bike shop. And how did Two Wheel Tuesday get dusty re-runs of Pinks added in? Why Speed bought Speedvision and then decided to stop showing racing is a top secret in Charlotte.

Eric Vegas - 16 August 2008 09:27 AM

Wrecked, who cares. Who's watching this crap. Same with Pinks. Speed needs more "racing" shows, give Despain and Miller and Varsha more airtime. Please, with American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance over for the season I need something to watch until new episodes of Top Gear and Overhaulin come back. lol. Plus, I'll be watching the new Knight Rider in September.

The New Knight rider's gonna be a piece of junk.

What you didn't like 80 hours of Pinks

Does anyone actually watch this stuff on its eighth or tenth go around other than the competitors on Pinks?