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The Real Reason Why Speed Channel Ended | Lights Out With John Roberts · Kenny Wallace Media

0:09
What's up everybody, I'm Charlie Marlowe and we are turning the
0:12
tables on John Roberts. It's still technically lights
0:16
out with John Roberts, except for Johnny.
0:19
TV is going to be the person being interviewed today as we
0:22
talk about the history of Speed Channel.
0:26
Johnny, how you doing, man? Doing great Charlie.
0:29
This is a lot of fun. You know what, I think a lot of
0:30
people are wondering about this because speed channel was huge.
0:35
It was iconic it for for race car fans.
0:39
And so I think this is something people are really interested in
0:42
and I hope people like this little story.
0:43
Yeah, no, I'm, I'm looking forward to it.
0:45
I obviously know about Speed Channel, but I wasn't a hardcore
0:48
NASCAR guy until about, let's say, 3 1/2 four years ago.
0:53
I covered a lot of NASCAR in O6O7 when I was working in
0:57
Michigan. We had Michigan International
0:58
Speedway in our market. I was working in Lansing.
1:01
So I'm I'm eager to learn about this too.
1:03
Let's let's start at the beginning, just how Speed
1:06
Channel started, Johnny, and how you got involved, how you got
1:09
the job. Well, the first thing that
1:11
happened, Charlie, we got to go way back.
1:13
And being a fellow local TV guy, I think you'll understand this
1:17
plain fact of the matter was I was making more money mowing
1:21
grass in Charlotte, NC, than I was anchoring the news on the
1:25
weekends at WBTV. And so I went into my news
1:29
director and I told her. I said, hey, look, man, this
1:31
ain't going right. It's probably going to be time
1:33
for me to leave here soon. And she goes, what are you going
1:36
to do? She goes, you got a contract,
1:37
you can't leave. And I go, well, yeah, I kind of
1:40
can because I'm going to go, I want to go run my landscaping
1:43
business. And she said, you're giving up a
1:46
job anchoring in TV to go mow grass.
1:49
And I said, well, no, not technically.
1:51
You know, we're not going just to mow grass.
1:53
I want to grow this company. She goes, well, you have to stay
1:56
till the end of the ratings book.
1:57
And I'm going to do everything I can to talk you out of this
1:59
decision. I think it's wrong.
2:01
And so I said, OK, well, we'll deal with that.
2:03
So then after that, but it was funny, I thought it actually was
2:08
a couple of my friends messing with me, Charlie, I thought it
2:12
was a joke. Somebody called and said, how
2:17
would you like to anchor NASCAR show for the Fox network?
2:22
And I said, why are people from LA calling the lawn mower from
2:27
Charlotte here to anchor the, the, the show on the Fox Sports
2:32
net? And so as I started talking to
2:35
him, they said, OK, it's just a 13 week handshake agreement.
2:38
There's no contract. It's part of the NASCAR deal
2:42
with Fox and NASCAR that we have to do this, what we call a
2:45
breakfast show on Fox Sports net.
2:47
So now I said, ah, I figured out no one else wants it, Charlie.
2:50
No one else wanted to do it and I was going to quit anyway.
2:53
So it's kind of a leap of faith. You know, let's, let's take
2:56
this. So I go back into my news
2:58
director and I said, hey, I'm still leaving, but I'm going to
3:03
Fox Sportsnet to do this NASCAR show.
3:06
And she goes, well, you can't do that.
3:07
You got a contract, You got to stay here.
3:09
And I said, well, did you remember you let me write in a
3:12
clause at the end of my contract that said I could leave for a
3:15
national TV network? You know, because she's
3:17
thinking, Charlie, this schmuck ain't going to CBS or NBC or
3:21
something like this. But then she goes, she says,
3:23
hey, that's not a national network, it's regional.
3:26
I said yes, but the show I'm doing is going to be a core
3:30
programming show. It's going to be a national
3:31
show. And she so she goes, she said,
3:34
you know, I think I could mess with you on this, but I'm not
3:37
going to wish you well. So to get a little bit of PR
3:41
dollars out of the thing, Charlie, she said she called The
3:44
Charlotte Observer and this guy from The Charlotte Observer,
3:47
this guy Mark Washburn wrote a real nice article on me, you
3:50
know, local boy going to the big time.
3:52
And so I was pretty excited about this whole thing.
3:54
So I go in Monday morning after this thing at this article hits
3:59
The Charlotte Observer, and that little message light is blinking
4:02
on the phone. And I pick it up and this guy
4:04
says, hey, John, this is Lou Damilio from Fox Sports New
4:08
York. I need you to call me at your
4:10
earliest convenience. So I said, OK, I think you know
4:13
how nice this guy's calling to welcome me aboard.
4:16
This is cool. So I called the number back, and
4:18
I say, hey, Lou, it's John Roberts from Charlotte.
4:21
Man, How you doing, buddy? And he goes, oh, thanks for
4:23
calling me back. I got 2 questions for you.
4:26
Who the blank are you and why are you telling The Charlotte
4:31
Observer you work for my network?
4:34
I said because I do and no you don't.
4:37
Because we got one contract in place and that's what Darryl
4:39
Waltrip, 'cause I don't know who you are.
4:41
Who are you and who gave you a contract?
4:44
And I said I have no contract. It's just a handshake agreement
4:47
with this company. NASCAR Images.
4:49
He goes, well, who the hell is NASCAR Images?
4:51
So, Charlie, my world just started dropping out and I
4:55
thought, you know, wow, what the hell is going on here?
5:00
The world thinks I'm going to this national TV show now.
5:03
I got to eat crow and go back. And so it's December.
5:07
Everybody in the world of NASCAR is gone, and I have nobody to
5:10
call, nobody to ask. And so I'm wondering, you know,
5:13
what in the hell is happening here?
5:15
So after a lot of of finagling, they actually wanted a dude
5:20
named Van Earle Wright. And Charlie, I don't know.
5:23
You remember Van Earle Wright? Yes, he's got the The Voice does
5:27
baseball right. They wanted Banner all right to
5:31
do this program, but these other guys had hired me.
5:34
So we go back and forth. We have to do a couple screen
5:38
tests and we eventually get accepted.
5:41
But again, this is a 13 week handshake agreement.
5:44
So after the first season, our ratings were very good.
5:48
And I have to say, Charlie, honestly, the popularity of
5:53
NASCAR grew so much in the wake of the death of Dale Earnhardt
5:56
that people were tuning in to anything they could find.
6:00
And they really took a liking to our little morning show.
6:03
And we kind of got the feeling that we had something pretty
6:06
cool going on. It was me, Billy Angle, Derek
6:08
Cope and Steve Wade to start with, and the people started
6:11
changing a little bit. I think we really took off when
6:14
Kelly Kenny Wallace joined us. And so after all that happened,
6:18
now here we are. Charlie, this 13 week handshake
6:22
agreement had turned into an actual year long contract.
6:27
So in the period of that year when I was working for Fox
6:32
Sports Net, in kind of typical Fox fashion, they bought Speed
6:36
Vision and said they were going to make a NASCAR channel.
6:40
Well, the original plan for the NASCAR channel changed.
6:43
They said, hey, how are we going to do a 24 hour network of
6:46
motors of, of just NASCAR racing.
6:48
Let's make it all Motorsports and call it Speed channel.
6:52
And so they had to say. So I didn't know if I was going
6:54
to be part of it or not. I knew Fox was going to own it
6:57
and I knew it was going to happen in Charlotte.
6:59
And and Charlie, they were so far behind the 8 ball that they
7:03
came into that building. And the night we went on the
7:06
air, there were still dudes bolting together the cubicles
7:10
and, and there were computers on the floor and we're supposed to
7:13
launch this 24 hour network. So they looked over at me,
7:17
Charlie, they said, they said, oh, this guy has a pulse.
7:19
Let's put him on the air. And so they had me anchor on the
7:22
first night of Speed Channel. And really after that it, it, it
7:27
grew into something really, really cool.
7:31
We eventually took the show to the racetrack and just had a
7:35
really, really nice 18 year room run after that.
7:38
But that's how it started with me.
7:41
OK, So what year did it start? And you said at the beginning
7:46
it's just a a morning show. So.
7:48
So how long until it became a 24 hour deal?
7:52
OK, two years we did NASCAR this morning, and then on the third
7:56
year of NASCAR this morning, we turned it into NASCAR race day,
8:00
and that was when Speed Channel was in full fledge, in full
8:03
force. We started out on Speed Channel,
8:06
which, yeah, again, just that little morning show.
8:08
And then Speed Channel had some really good stuff, Charlie.
8:11
They had Formula One. We did.
8:14
I actually had the honor of doing a couple World Rally
8:17
races. I did play by play for a couple
8:20
World Rally races and just all kinds of different Motorsports
8:23
and it was just a really, really cool place to be.
8:26
And I got to say this, Charlie, you been around TV long enough.
8:30
When you have a group of people that are all pulling in the
8:34
right direction, the same direction and all working
8:36
together and no one cares who gets the credit, you have a
8:39
pretty successful thing. And that's what's the original
8:42
Speed Channel was. And so did it start around the
8:46
year 2000 ish? O3 was the first full year of
8:50
speed Channel O One was that first year of.
8:54
Fox Gotcha. OK, so yourself, Kenny Wallace,
8:59
what Chris Davoda, Kyle Petty, Steve Burns.
9:02
Tell people. Yeah, tell people who don't know
9:05
all the names who who were some of the names that were on Speed
9:08
Channel over these 18 years? Oh man, just a great crew.
9:12
We started out, of course, on NASCAR this morning when it was
9:16
SPEED. We had Barry Dotson, Kenny
9:18
Wallace with me, Then we got Jimmy Spencer involved and
9:21
that's when we really turned up the volume on that program.
9:24
And we also had the opportunity with the same group to do NASCAR
9:28
Victory Lane. But you have Bob Varsha, Lee,
9:30
Diffie Man, Dave Despaine Christavoda, Steve Burns, Bob
9:39
Dylan or Ray Dunlap, everybody that worked there.
9:43
I think it was a place people really wanted to work.
9:46
And what we did, Charlie, we went to the racetrack every
9:50
weekend and we're just going to do a ton of programming.
9:52
We didn't have any scripts. We didn't really find out
9:55
exactly what we're going to do until it was time to do it.
9:58
And it was just if, if I could pick something for me, the kind
10:04
of TVI wanted to do, I would want it to be Motorsports, I
10:08
would want it to be unscripted and I would want it to be live
10:11
on scene. So I got the best of all worlds
10:13
there. And, and I I just remember those
10:16
were great days. I could not wait to get to work
10:20
and was so thankful and blessed to be part of Speed Channel.
10:25
So how many different sports leagues were doing shows like
10:30
this? I'm just trying to think, and I
10:31
remember seeing you guys out there with the desk at the
10:35
tracks and huge crowds in the background and you're having fun
10:39
and you're cutting to the fans and people are wearing hats and
10:42
helmets and all kinds of fun. And I'm, I'm thinking about
10:45
college game day with college football.
10:47
And I'm guessing the timeline was, was kind of similar.
10:51
Like how did it grow over the years?
10:53
Did it start when, when you're at a track, was there just a
10:56
couple 5-7 people then all of a sudden it's thousands.
10:59
Tell me about like the evolution of it.
11:01
Well, when we started, first of all, we we did NASCAR live and,
11:05
and, and race day and trackside was the show with Daryl and Jeff
11:10
Hammond and Larry Mack and those guys, they, we get pretty decent
11:15
crowds to begin with. But when people started figuring
11:18
it out how much fun it was going to be to be there and how it was
11:21
part of the whole racing experience, the crowds really
11:24
started growing within the first year.
11:26
And again, that kept us alive and kept us on the air.
11:29
And what was really neat, Charlie, was you mentioned other
11:32
sports. So one time we're sitting in
11:34
Victory Lane at Charlotte and that was really cool.
11:38
We put our desk in Victory Lane, and the first time we did it,
11:43
Jimmie Johnson nearly hit us in the butt with his race car on
11:47
our set and he jumped out of his car and he looked.
11:49
He goes, guys, this is so cool that you guys are right here in
11:52
Victory Lane. We got sprayed with champagne.
11:54
We got sprayed with confetti. So we're at Charlotte for an
11:57
October race and our old buddy Jimmy Spencer, it was just the,
12:03
you never knew what Spence was going to do.
12:05
So there's these two dudes standing over in a corner and
12:07
they got suits on and they have paper credentials.
12:10
So you know, they're they're visitors, but they're just
12:11
looking right at us. So I said Spence, who the people
12:14
over there. And he goes, I don't know.
12:16
So he gets up in the middle of a live TV show, Charlie, which
12:19
wasn't the best idea, but he goes over and he goes to these
12:23
two dudes and he starts talking to him and he comes over to back
12:26
over to the set in a couple minutes.
12:27
He goes, hey, this is pretty cool.
12:28
Jr. Those guys are from the NFL
12:30
Network. They heard about our little
12:32
program and they want to see how they can capture the same thing
12:35
that we're doing on the field post NFL games.
12:40
So man, what a huge compliment to have the NFL looking at
12:44
something NASCAR TV was doing. So it it was sports wide, like
12:49
you said, but there was something special going on with
12:52
the relationship between SPEED and NASCAR that I don't think
12:54
other sports had with their broadcasters.
12:58
And how important do you think also what you guys did being at
13:01
the tracks was to just growing the sport.
13:05
And it, it seems like when, when people talk about NASCAR kind of
13:08
falling off in the, in the 2000 tens, whatever it is, they're
13:13
clearly trying to bring this vibe back.
13:15
Our, our buddy Kenny Wallace does the, the trackside live
13:18
with you, right? You guys are out there at what,
13:21
1012 tracks a year? And you're here in Saint Louis,
13:23
You guys are having fun. You're you're kind of bringing
13:25
it back in a in a different way because it's a live show for the
13:29
fans. But how much do you think what
13:31
you guys did kind of helped just grow the sport and getting
13:34
people there early and staying late and just kind of creating
13:38
this whole package of racing and entertainment around the races?
13:42
Well, that's that's a good point to be made there, Charlie,
13:45
because I think that's that gets us into really the meat of the
13:48
discussion we're having right here.
13:50
When we made the announcement or we didn't really necessarily
13:53
make an announcement, word started getting out that Fox
13:56
wanted to take race day back in the studio.
14:00
And when people started getting word that it was no longer going
14:04
to be at the race track, we had track presidents coming up to
14:08
us, Charlie, and saying what the hell are you guys doing?
14:11
We're we're trying to sell tickets here and you guys are
14:14
taking away one of our main attractions.
14:16
And I just had to give him the shrug, say, hey, I don't know,
14:20
bosses want to take it back to the studio.
14:22
So we do what the bosses say. But I didn't agree with it at
14:26
the time, Charlie, but I wasn't going to say anything because I
14:28
wasn't in charge. But when they started making
14:31
that move and started talking about not having at the
14:34
racetrack, we just kind of knew something was afoot, something
14:37
was up. And was that just strictly cost
14:41
cutting? Well, it was the beginning of
14:44
the cost cutting thing when they started talking about it was a
14:47
very expensive thing to do to get all the people there.
14:51
There. I think there are 90 employees
14:53
at Speed Channel that went to each individual racetrack.
14:56
But it was still, I believe with the number of viewers we are
15:01
getting, it should have been a profitable venture.
15:04
It should have worked well financially if we were running
15:08
it in the right way. We had a lot of a lot of
15:11
frivolous stuff at the racetrack that I always used to say.
15:13
They're all these people that did all these different things
15:15
that weren't really necessarily good for the TV product.
15:19
And if there was a situation that's going to take that off
15:22
the road and send it back just because of cost, let's look at
15:25
some cost cutting. But again, Charlie, that was
15:28
when something was afoot. They did not want to hear about
15:32
any type of cost cutting thing. They just said, hey, look, we're
15:35
eventually taking this thing back to the studio.
15:39
OK, so, so at this point you're starting to kind of realize
15:43
obviously changes are happening. So how long were you then you're
15:47
you're at the track, you go back to the studio.
15:50
So how long were you in the studio until the network made
15:53
the the total change? That was about, I'd say about
15:59
three years. It was until 2018.
16:01
There's about three years that we are back in the studio and
16:05
that was the the big thing here, Charlie.
16:08
The big picture was when Speed Channel became FS1.
16:14
That was the idea that Fox had brewing and this was a plan for
16:19
quite a lot of a long time. We didn't know about it really
16:22
at the time, but strange things were going on.
16:25
First of all, there was all this talk about taking it off the
16:27
road and then what happened. This was the interesting part of
16:31
it. And there's some background
16:33
before this Charlie about some strange things that were going
16:36
on. We were canceling good stuff and
16:39
and keeping bad stuff on the air and a lot of people were saying
16:43
and get rid of good people and good things.
16:46
And we also had a new president come on board of Speed Channel
16:51
and Charlie. When we had a new president
16:53
come, it should have given us somewhat of an idea that this
16:59
dude was president of Speed Channel, but he never moved to
17:01
Charlotte. He lived in a hotel for months.
17:04
And so, as I found out later through a through an unnamed
17:09
source in the in the higher up of things he said he told me he
17:13
said, man, didn't you see that this dude was sent to take apart
17:18
speed channel because they wanted to change it to FS1.
17:22
You would get a tremendous amount of blowback from race
17:25
fans if you took this wonderful Motorsports network and all the
17:29
sudden turned it in to an all sports networks.
17:32
They wanted to make sure and and again, I I don't fault them for
17:35
it, Charlie. I think it was pretty good
17:37
planning. They didn't want to just hit the
17:39
race fan with this bombshell all together saying your network's
17:42
going away. They wanted to slowly take
17:44
things away one after another. And we we probably should have
17:48
seen it coming. But here was the big thing and
17:51
here's where it really came to fruition that we all knew what
17:55
was going on. We were all instructed to be at
17:57
this big meeting at Charlotte. They said everybody's got to be
18:01
at this meeting. So we went into the big room.
18:03
It's dark and all the guys from LA are there.
18:06
Lights go down and this big screen pops up and it says big
18:11
announcer guy says conventional wisdom says there should only be
18:15
3 TV networks. Well, Fox isn't conventional and
18:20
boom, they put on the Fox network, right?
18:23
They show NFL clips and they say how you know Rupert Murdoch and
18:26
company which they did that they added a fourth TV network when
18:30
the establishment was three networks for years, OK, they
18:33
went against it. So then they play all that
18:35
stuff. So next item on the screen,
18:38
conventional wisdom says that America should only have 124
18:42
hour news network and they show CNN boom.
18:45
Well, Fox is not conventional and they show Fox Sports net and
18:49
the I'm sorry, Fox News Channel and they show all the original
18:53
guys on Fox News Channel and they say how they establish this
18:58
again, not conventional and taking on the the big dogs at
19:03
CNN and trying to have a rival 24 hour news network, which was
19:07
pretty successful. Then here comes the bombshell,
19:10
Charlie. They said conventional wisdom
19:12
says that there should only be 124 hour Sports Network and they
19:16
show ESPN clips and they say, well, Fox is not conventional.
19:21
And they had all this mock up Fox Sports 1 stuff up there and
19:25
they had like Kurt Menifee and Terry Bradshaw and all these
19:28
guys up there saying welcome to Fox Sports 1, welcome to Fox
19:31
Sports 1. And man, Charlie, I said at that
19:35
point I said, OK, I get it. This was what all this was
19:39
leading up to. So Eric Shanks, president of
19:42
Fox, he said, you know, not to worry after, you know, screen
19:45
goes down, lights come up. He said, do not worry.
19:50
We are still fully vested in NASCAR.
19:53
We're still going to do a ton of coverage.
19:55
We're still going to be a Motorsports network.
19:58
We're just going to take on ESPN.
20:00
We're going to get all these properties and we're going to do
20:03
a show. That directly goes up against
20:06
SportsCenter, which again, I applaud them for their
20:10
intestinal fortitude to go up against these huge guys.
20:13
They did it with the three major networks.
20:15
They did it with the CNN. But when they finally got there,
20:18
Charlie, I don't know if the dismantling of speed channel and
20:23
placing FS1 on that network where that was.
20:29
So if your cable network had speed and all the sudden turned
20:31
into FS1. Now the the first live show or
20:35
the last live show was at the racetrack.
20:38
And I did that one. And then the following morning,
20:41
Saturday morning when Fox Sports Net actually launched the first
20:45
live show was me and Darryl Waltrip.
20:47
So I said, OK, I think we can get used to this a little bit.
20:51
But then but the whole thing came about with the talk again,
20:56
was moving race day back to the studio because of how much it
21:00
cost. So Charlie, here's something a
21:01
lot of people just don't know. And you know, I don't want to go
21:06
naming a lot of names, but we had a Co worker at the time that
21:10
had a connection that went to a major company.
21:14
And he, Charlie, honestly, true story.
21:19
He secured a $6 million sponsorship for race day to keep
21:22
it on the road. He went into the powers that be
21:25
thinking he was going to be the savior and he walked in the
21:28
office. He said, guys, we can keep race
21:30
day on the road. I have secured us a $6 million
21:34
sponsor. And what happened Charlie?
21:36
They said we are not interested. And I'd imagine you could have
21:42
heard a pin drop. Not interested in $6 million.
21:45
Nope. We are moving this thing back to
21:47
the studio. It's going to be a better show
21:49
there. And so at that point, we all
21:52
said, well, there's nothing we can really do about that.
21:55
And so here it is, years later, I'm sitting down and there there
22:00
may have been an adult beverage or two involved in it, having an
22:03
having a, a discussion with someone who was at the time in
22:07
the middle of this whole thing. And he said once again that he
22:11
said, you know, people were sent to dismantle speed channel to
22:17
make the launch of Fox Sports 1A better thing.
22:20
And despite some really great efforts, some really great
22:23
people, some good programming that they tried now now I don't
22:28
know if I agree with the way they went about their sports
22:30
highlight program. I'm sure Charlie, you watch that
22:33
as well. I think it was just simply a
22:36
mimicry, an aping of SportsCenter, which didn't
22:41
really work out at the time. It was very quickly cancelled,
22:43
as were all the original programs on there and they spent
22:46
years revamping their programs. So guys, really Charlie in a
22:50
nutshell, that is what really happened to Speed Channel.
22:53
It was not a huge dollar play, It was not a huge financial
22:57
play. The idea was to take on ESPN and
23:02
and win, and it didn't quite come to fruition.
23:06
And you said they kind of phased you guys out or phased out
23:09
Motorsports. So you go from a 24 hour
23:13
Motorsports network with NASCAR and all that.
23:16
So when it when it switches to FS1, how much Motorsports and
23:20
NASCAR coverage was there right out of the gate?
23:23
I mean, was there couple 234 hours a day and it was other
23:27
sports or, or was it kind of like you said slow where you
23:30
started off and then they they just kind of keep picking away
23:33
pieces of the Motorsports month after month, year after year?
23:36
Well, the one thing that was kind of disappointing to me is
23:42
they started moving programming around a lot and when we were on
23:47
SPEED Channel, that the highest rated program on SPEED Channel
23:49
was NASCAR Race day. The second highest rated program
23:53
on SPEED Channel was NASCAR Victory Lane.
23:55
For quite some time. Victory Lane was really cool.
23:58
It was unique. It was like nothing else.
24:01
We were in Victory Lane with the winner of the race and capturing
24:05
incredible emotions. Sometimes I remember some of the
24:07
first time winners really remember Casey Mears first win,
24:10
Regan Smith. A lot of these guys that their
24:13
first wins, Paul Menard, it was just really cool to be with
24:17
them, Martin Truex to be with them and be with their families.
24:19
But all of a sudden they just nuke this show.
24:21
They said, well, people aren't watching anymore.
24:23
I said well yeah, people can't find it.
24:25
Sometimes it's on at 2:00 AM, sometimes it's on right after
24:27
the race, sometimes it's bounced over to FS2.
24:32
People couldn't find it. So of course the ratings went
24:34
down and they canceled that. And that was the that was a real
24:37
big thing for me, Charlie, wouldn't it?
24:39
When Victory Lane went away, I thought, OK, this is really
24:43
going to going to take a turn even more sometime soon.
24:47
And that was a 2017 18 when I got my phone call that a lot of
24:52
other people had had, you know, it was just man, it was a quick
24:54
phone call, Charlie. But again, I don't have any sour
24:57
grapes, no hard feelings or anything.
24:59
It could have been done a little better.
25:00
But there are three weeks left to go in the season.
25:02
And I get this phone call. They say, hey, man, we don't
25:04
need you next year. And I go, what I said, well, we
25:07
don't need you next year. We're not renewing your
25:09
contract. I said, OK, so after 18 years
25:14
with the network, that's it, that you get this 32nd phone
25:17
call and that's it, that that's the way it goes.
25:19
But looking back on that, Charlie, when I look back at it,
25:23
but lived my dream for 18 years, in 2012, I had the opportunity
25:28
to host the Daytona 500. That 18 million people watched.
25:32
That was the honor of a lifetime.
25:34
So I think there's probably a lot of confusion as to what
25:39
happened. There's probably a lot of Monday
25:40
morning quarterbacking that goes on.
25:43
I probably would have done things a lot different if I was
25:46
in charge. But maybe it's a good thing I
25:47
wasn't in charge, Charlie, because maybe it would have
25:49
ended a lot sooner. But that's the way that whole
25:51
thing came about. I feel like in a way Speed
25:55
Channel was ahead of its time. And then they switch over to
25:59
FS1, which which I get because now you have all these networks,
26:03
you have CBS Sports Network and NBC Sports Network, right?
26:07
And you already had ESPN. But I feel like in a way Speed
26:11
Channel was ahead of its time because now you have all the
26:14
sports leagues, you have MLB Network, you have NBATV, you
26:17
have the NFL Network, you have the NHL Network.
26:20
And I guess I'm just kind of wondering, you know, I'm
26:23
surprised NASCAR doesn't have its own NASCAR TV, NASCAR
26:27
network, but also Motorsports that as you know, John, I, I
26:31
always find it kind of interesting to, to view the, the
26:34
crossovers or, or, or not so much of the fan base, right?
26:38
Like NASCAR has the strong following, but that doesn't
26:42
necessarily mean that those fans like IndyCar or F1.
26:45
So I mean, you could do a Motorsports network, but I've
26:48
noticed like we'll try to do content on F1 or IndyCar,
26:52
whatever it is. I almost feel like NASCAR is
26:54
more tied to dirt racing than it is to open wheels.
26:57
So it would be interesting if they kind of rebranded a a speed
27:01
channel and made it a Motorsports network.
27:03
Do you think that would work? Or is it more like you should
27:05
have an open wheel network and maybe a a NASCAR network?
27:09
Well, recent recently, Charlie, and I'm glad you asked that
27:12
because I have had a couple conversations with the powers
27:15
that be in NASCAR broadcasting and they have told me that right
27:20
now a business model and I don't know what this means, right?
27:24
This is a, this is a response to what I would say, because right
27:28
now, Charlie, look at look at what you, what your
27:30
opportunities are. I don't think you necessarily
27:32
need this whole huge TV network that's already set up.
27:35
That's why FS1 took over speed channel, because speed channel
27:41
was established in some 70 million households.
27:44
But nowadays with the landscape of broadcasting, you could
27:49
stream something, you can stream a network.
27:51
And what what I really think the big thing was Charlie was, and I
27:56
think this was brilliant at the time, it was David Hill and Rick
27:59
Minor were the two guys in charge.
28:02
And I think here was their brilliant move.
28:04
There was at the time an NFL Network and I think MLB Network
28:09
existed at the time of Speed Channel's inception.
28:12
But what they had was this one sport trying to fill up 24 hours
28:16
of programming so that a ton of infomercials, a ton of reruns.
28:20
But Rick and David got together, put their minds together, and I
28:25
hope I'm giving credit in the right place, but this is the way
28:27
I remember it happening. They said we need an all
28:30
Motorsports network because the NASCAR content isn't necessarily
28:35
going to fill up 24 hours a day, seven days a week if we have F1,
28:39
which we did at the time with the America's broadcast home for
28:42
F1 World Rally. And at times I saw boat racing.
28:47
If it raced, it was good. And then Charlie, there was a
28:50
while that we got into all these Dang reality shows.
28:54
And I think we all know the farthest thing in the world from
28:56
reality is reality television. It's all scripted.
29:00
And we had a hundred cars you must drive or 10 cars you must
29:04
wreck or Ice Rd. truckers or towers or all those different
29:10
things. And that that that made for a
29:12
dip. And it just showed you that
29:13
there there were people that were really interested.
29:16
And I remember Kyle Petty pulling me aside at the
29:18
racetrack one time back when he was driving.
29:21
He wasn't doing a lot of TV. He was still full time driver.
29:23
He said hey man, y'all got to cut that blank out.
29:26
I said cut what out Kyle? All that crap you're putting on
29:29
Speed channel because I'm a Motorsports fan.
29:31
I want to see racing and Kyle told me that.
29:34
He told me that directly and then I saw a quote from Dale
29:37
Junior on the same thing. Show me the Dang racing and quit
29:43
with this other stuff. So to your point Charlie, I
29:46
believe 100% there is room for a full Motorsports network.
29:52
But the guys at NASCAR, the way they have explained to me right
29:55
now, their business model doesn't support it for them to
29:58
do it. And also you'd have to have a
30:01
tremendous amount of money to buy NASCAR rights to do that.
30:05
Fox already had that rights package.
30:07
So Fox, the umbrella ownership over speed channel, we had all
30:10
that taken care of at the time. So, you know, I, I, I love
30:16
Charlie, you know, we just love our friend Kenny Wallace.
30:19
He puts things in perspective so well and we had had an 18 year
30:24
run together, me and Kenny. So a lot of people had come and
30:27
gone throughout the course of Speed Channel and me and Kenny
30:29
had kind of been together throughout the entire thing.
30:32
And I was, you know, kind of lamenting the fact that it was
30:35
ending and I was kind of sad about it.
30:37
You know how Kenny is. Kenny goes well.
30:39
Hail Jr. MASH was only on the air 11
30:41
years. We got that beat by 7.
30:45
I get it, Kenny, if you look at it that way, really, really good
30:48
run. But still, I think it ended too
30:51
early, and I think it ended for some of the wrong reasons.
30:55
Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned reality TV and I only
30:58
bring this up because I I literally just saw this either
31:01
this morning or yesterday on Twitter X, and I think it's the
31:05
anniversary of MTV starting. And there was this meme and it
31:09
said basically MTVMTV celebrating 43 years.
31:14
Thank you for your 14 years of music, right?
31:17
And so the joke is people loved it when it was music videos, but
31:21
then they turned into the real world and all that crap.
31:24
And I think most people, whether it's my generation, your
31:27
generation, I mean, we're not that far away in age, but we
31:30
remember, we remember MTV for the videos.
31:32
And then it became all these reality shows.
31:34
And I think most people thought it was crap, didn't like it.
31:39
And to to wrap up my point, I, I think what's cool is even though
31:43
they made this change and you didn't like it and a lot of
31:46
people didn't like it, you know, the fans seemed to not like it.
31:49
And I monitor the comments on all these YouTube channels and
31:53
podcasts and it really seems like the fans, the NASCAR fans,
31:57
the race fans, they so fondly remember those days, the glory
32:02
days of Trackside Live and Race Day and all the different shows.
32:06
So no matter what the suits did, right and, and they have to make
32:10
suits decisions. But the people loved you guys
32:13
and the people remember you guys.
32:15
And that's got to mean a lot to you guys.
32:17
I would. Think, oh man, Charlie, it does.
32:20
When we go back to the racetrack and see people and when we put
32:23
something out. It's the really good side of
32:25
social media. When you hear those comments,
32:29
man, it makes it because it was fun.
32:31
It was an honor and privilege for us to do it.
32:34
But to know that people really appreciated it.
32:37
And I got to tell you something, it probably wasn't the best
32:40
career move for me. But you know, sometimes our
32:43
mouths just get a little bit ahead of ours ourselves.
32:46
But we are in a meeting and we had just moved race day from the
32:50
track to the studio and we got ratings reports.
32:53
So we used to get roughly about a million viewers for a good,
32:57
like I say, a good race day, race day show.
33:00
If you're like it, Andy or Charlotte, one of the bigger
33:02
races, I should say big or not good, they're all good.
33:05
But one of the bigger races, we get a million viewers.
33:08
And so we started doing it in the studio and we get this
33:11
ratings report and some of the some of the suits are around,
33:14
which again is I knew my mouth was eventually going to get me
33:17
in some type of trouble. But Charlie, they said, well,
33:20
you know, we being a race day was the highest rated program of
33:23
the weekend. We got about 530,000 viewers.
33:27
And so they basically had cut viewership about in half.
33:31
And so I said, Charlie, I said, man, you know, I must have been
33:34
absent that day in broadcast school.
33:36
I thought you were supposed to get more viewers, not cut your
33:39
viewership in half. And one of our bosses looked at
33:42
me and said, don't don't ever say that again.
33:44
Just don't ever say that again. But but shoot, it was true.
33:47
What we had managed to cut our viewership in half and if you
33:52
don't say anything about that, I don't think you're necessarily a
33:55
very good employee If if you don't care.
33:56
I cared about what we're doing and it it, it turned out to not
34:01
be the right move. But again, back to your point.
34:05
I, I took a right turn on you there really quickly, Charlie.
34:07
But the, the fans that were out there and the fans that still
34:11
talk about it kind of interesting, man.
34:13
We're, we are what now? Almost well, seven years
34:18
removed. Oh, ten years removed from the
34:20
last at track race day and I am in downtown Nashville taking my
34:26
truck through the car wash and a very young man is wiping the the
34:31
bugs off the windshield. And I threw him AI threw him a
34:34
buck. And he goes, hey, man, you're
34:37
that NASCAR broadcaster, aren't you?
34:39
I said, yes, Sir, thank you for noticing.
34:41
He goes, man, I used to watch race day all the time.
34:43
And I said, oh, thanks, Charlie. He had to be nine years old when
34:48
he was watching race day all the time.
34:50
And just just to know that we still have that kind of stick in
34:53
power and people still know it, man.
34:55
It's just just rewarding as hell.
34:58
I think what's also cool is back in the day, it was all about TV.
35:02
And I get that. And I wasn't on the network TVI
35:04
worked local TV, but it was all about just being on TV.
35:08
And I think what's so cool now, I understand TV still matters.
35:12
I'm not going to pretend like it doesn't, but it doesn't matter
35:15
nearly as much. And you guys can essentially do
35:18
the same type of thing. And people are doing podcasts.
35:22
We're doing this podcast right here that'll be on Kenny Wallace
35:25
YouTube and Kenny Wallace Media Podcast.
35:27
But you guys do those trackside lives and they're broadcast at
35:31
the track. They're broadcast all over
35:33
social media platforms. So it, it's not traditional TV,
35:37
but still, I mean, 10s of thousands, potentially hundreds
35:40
of thousands, millions of people will still watch those shows,
35:44
whether it's live streaming through clips, through social
35:47
media clips, You can still kind of do the same thing.
35:50
It's just a different delivery system.
35:53
It it is Charlie, and you got to adapt.
35:55
You know, what's kind of funny is I'm going to age myself here.
35:57
I remember when I first started in local TV, This is kind of
36:01
ugly, Charlie. But we had some guys that were
36:05
still fighting videotape. They shot on film, they had film
36:11
cameras and they edited film with a razor blade and they
36:15
didn't like this videotape thing.
36:18
They said it's not very high quality.
36:20
And and you know, at that point, I mean, film is just so far gone
36:24
and in local media and electronic media and electronic
36:27
news gathering, it's it's so but but they they were still
36:29
fighting it. So I think you can have people
36:32
out there right now that are traditionalists and say we want
36:35
to keep the same model. I think you do have to adapt
36:38
with the times and for us now to be able to go out and do our
36:42
now. Before Charlie, I don't think we
36:44
could have done this under the old NASCAR broadcast rules.
36:49
If you were a broadcast partner, you could do certain things at a
36:52
racetrack, but you had to pay a lot of money to to do it under
36:56
NASCAR's umbrella. And people did.
36:58
But nowadays with so many streaming opportunities with
37:01
some of the broadcast partners that are there now streaming,
37:04
that's allowing us to do things like Kenny and myself are doing
37:08
at the racetrack where we stream these little programs and people
37:11
are finding it and people are enjoying it.
37:14
And man, I tell you, that was one of the absolute music to my
37:17
ears, Charlie, when Kenny called me up and he said, hey, you want
37:21
to go back to the racetrack? Marcus Smith from SMI wants to
37:25
bring us back and do some of these shows, like the old race
37:28
day shows. And I said, first of all, yes,
37:32
I'm in 100%. And Hallelujah that we get to go
37:36
back because man, I look forward to that so much, Charlie.
37:38
I look forward to going back to the racetrack so much because
37:42
these got these race car drivers, they appreciate it.
37:45
We've got some great comments from them and that we're still
37:48
keeping this thing alive. And I, I don't think we ever
37:51
could get back to exactly the way it was to exactly what
37:54
everything was. But man, we're pretty close
37:57
right now and it's just, it's just an awesome thing.
38:00
Love it. Well, this is again, this is
38:02
Lights out with John Roberts. So anything I didn't ask you
38:06
about or or any final thoughts on Speech Channel?
38:09
I think I think we covered a lot.
38:10
I think people are really going to enjoy this, but if you want
38:13
to put a nice bow on this. Man, I'd I'd love to Charlie and
38:17
and thank you again for for directing the combo here because
38:22
I think this is something people really wanted to know what
38:24
really happened to it. A lot of people love speed
38:26
channel. We loved it too.
38:29
And also I am forever grateful to the people at Fox, Rick
38:34
Miner, David Hill, George Greenberg, Doug Sellers, the
38:38
guys that started that whole thing out.
38:40
And then when Speed Channel came around, Jim Libertour, Hunter
38:44
Nickel, Chris Long, all those guys who believed in US really,
38:49
really appreciate them doing A Bottom line is I know all good
38:53
things have to come to an end sometime.
38:56
I thought Speed Channel ended a little bit early.
38:58
I thought race day ended a little bit early, but it was a
39:01
great experience and I'm just forever grateful.
39:05
Awesome. And as I said earlier, the fans
39:07
loved it and and they remember it and I think in the end that's
39:10
what really matters the most. So John, thanks for doing this.
39:13
This was a lot of fun and I I learned a lot as well, so thank
39:16
you.