The final days of Speed

[bugeyedgomer]

Passion of employees, viewers powered motorsports channel

By Tripp Mickle & John Ourand, Staff Writers

Published August 5, 2013, Page 1

In late July, Speed employee Jessie Morrison scaled the large, red Speed sign outside the broadcast network’s Charlotte headquarters. She stretched out across it on her stomach, turned toward a camera and smiled.

Later, she posted the photo on Instagram with a simple caption: “Going to miss seeing this sign.”

The image and words captured the way that Morrison and many of her fellow Speed employees feel this summer. These are the final days of Speed. In less than two weeks, the 24-hour network no longer will exist in its current form. Many of its employees will be looking for new jobs.

FROM FOX SPORTS
Fox’s statement on the closing of Speed

“Change in the workplace is challenging, and every job lost in a transition of this type is significant. We’ve been as fair and communicative as possible given our plans at each step along the way. Looking at this project as a whole, we’ve placed those displaced in new positions as often as possible, and the net job-gain at Fox Sports in the past six months is significant, including several new departments in Charlotte. We still expect Charlotte to be an integral part of Fox Sports 1 going forward, especially around our expanded NASCAR race package.”

Speed’s owner, Fox Sports, has decided there is more money to be had in a multisport channel. It will shutter the motorsports channel and convert it into Fox Sports 1 on Aug. 17.

The final days of Speed - SportsBusiness Daily | SportsBusiness Journal | SportsBusiness Daily Global

[FormerFF]

Honestly, I hardly ever turn Speed on anymore. If I have a few minutes I'll watch a Grand Am race, or a Barrett-jackson auction, bot other than that, there's not all that much on there these days.

[larryn]

is there going to be a motorsports highlights show on somewhere now?

[Jag_Warrior]

Watching Speed Channel go dark on my DirecTV kind of hit me in the gut. I remember how thrilled I was when Speedvision first came on years ago. That was kind of like watching an old friend, who'd been sick for a long time, finally die.

Well, at least my hatred for most everything Fox related is now pretty much complete.

[anthonyvop]

Watching Speed Channel go dark on my DirecTV kind of hit me in the gut. I remember how thrilled I was when Speedvision first came on years ago. That was kind of like watching an old friend, who'd been sick for a long time, finally die.

Well, at least my hatred for most everything Fox related is now pretty much complete.

I don't hate Fox. Fox exists to make money and all they are doing is giving the market what they want.

Wanna hate something. Hate Society and it's popular culture.

[Jag_Warrior]

I don't hate Fox. Fox exists to make money and all they are doing is giving the market what they want.

So did Pablo Escobar. But I didn't care for him either. I understand business very well, Anthony. But that doesn't mean that I have to like or accept the dumbing down of programming, just so that the least common denominators among us have more mind numbing shows to watch and advertisers will fork over more cash to Ruppie and the other network owners. Reality TV shows, with staged scenes and talking monkeys/dregs of society, are cheaper to produce than scripted television, with "real" actors. It's cheaper to do a rip-off sequel than developing an original plot line. This particular forum (Indy Car) is the perfect place for me to go on another rant about cost vs. value. Look at this freakin' mess!!! But as I've been making that value over cost rant for well over a decade now, I am tired of typing out the same words over & over. Too many care more about cutting costs as a way to make a profit than delivering higher value or quality. I guess that kind of makes my specialty something of a dying field. I should probably bone up on my Spanish or learn Mandarin Chinese in case my early retirement date doesn't happen within the next 5-6 years. Wonder how you say "outsource" in Mandarin, anyway?

Wanna hate something. Hate Society and it's popular culture.

Too late. I already do.

[FormerFF]

I flipped it on Friday evening to see if there was anything of interest on. It was NASCAR qualifying, which at least is actually racing related, but not something I was much interested in. I flipped forward through the schedule to see if anything interesting was coming up in its last few hours. There was something on about the history of the Trans-Am series, so I recorded it and watched it. It turns out it was produced somewhere around 1995. Somewhere in the middle the old Speedvision logo popped up at the end of a commercial break. That was kind of a nice touch.

I'll be watching Fox Sports next year since USCR will be televised there. My only question for now is what will happen to those long stretches of endurance racing coverage, since USCR should have 24 hour, 12 hour, 6 hour, and 9+ hour enduros on next year's schedule. I suspect more of these races will be shifted to the online portal. It's doubtful that the stick and ball sports fans that FS1 will be looking for want to see long stretches of endurance racing.

[zako85]

It's really sad that the gearheads lost a TV channel that was completely dedicated to us. Granted, in the United States, any form of motorsport other than NASCAR is treated merely as a curiosity. There is no much money in it. At the same time I kind of wonder, what could have happened to Speed TV if they invited some of the brightest minds in auto journalism, such as the people who run jalopnik.com, autoblog.com, or thetruthaboutcars.com to work for them.

[Starter]

I'm particularly going to miss seeing the Targa Newfoundland.

[Racepfan]

RACER magazine and their website have now dramatically expanded their existing relationships with former SPEED Channel contributors Adam Cooper (F1), Robin Miller (IndyCar) and Marshall Pruett (IndyCar, ALMS, WEC, Grand-AM and PWC). Their opinions, news and "Miller's Mailbag" will now appear regularly on RACER's site along with video updates from the field. It is a homecoming for all. RACER relaunched the original Speedvision.com site at midnight Y2K and continued to provide motorsports and automotive content to SPEED until the end of 2007. In addition to the former SPEED trio, RACER editor David Malsher is the lead contributor (F1 and IndyCar) to RACER and has also lined up exclusive Formula 1 insights from the highly respected Mark Hughes, David Tremayne and Edd Straw.