In-Car Cameras Can Show Too Much

Welcome to NASCAR, Fox. In other sports, a replay may show a twisted ankle, or maybe a broken leg. In stock car racing, it too often is death. The worst possible scenario happened to Fox as it ushered in a new era in NASCAR television with the Super Bowl of stock car racing, the Daytona 500. At the end of an exciting race came not only a death but the death of the sport's biggest star, Dale Earnhardt. A death shown in your living room. "We went from awesome to awful in a blink of an eye," said Artie Kempner, who as director of Fox's NASCAR race coverage chooses the pictures that go out over the air. In one way, Fox was fortunate. Kempner said Earnhardt's car was one of 12 in the race equipped with in-car cameras. Most of the cars had three cameras--one aimed at the driver, one on the roof of the cab that shoots what the driver sees through the windshield and one on the rear bumper--a "bumper cam"--that shoots the cars behind it. Earnhardt's car was equipped with only two cameras--one on the roof of the cab and a bumper cam. Earnhardt told Fox he didn't want to have a live camera on him as he drove. One problem is Earnhardt was prone to making obscene gestures at other drivers. So there was no in-car camera aimed at Earnhardt during his fatal crash. Kempner said such a shot would not be used in a fatal crash, but then no one knew initially that Earnhardt was killed. Actually, the accident didn't appear to be that bad. The one involving Tony Stewart and 20 other cars earlier in the race looked much worse. And there was an in-car shot of Stewart shown during replays of that spectacular crash. Stewart was unconscious at the time. In-car replays of the Earnhardt crash showed it as he saw it, with the hood slamming into the windshield. Viewers were spared. They didn't actually see Earnhardt. TECHNOLOGY, GOOD AND BAD Television technology may be the No. 1 reason for the rise in popularity of NASCAR. At the 1979 Daytona 500, Benny Parson's car was the first to carry an in-car camera, which Emmy Award-winning producer Bob Fishman of CBS helped develop. Parson's car also had one in 1980. The first two years the cameras were stationary. Then in 1981 cars driven by Terry Labonte and Richard Childress were equipped with cameras that could be panned and tilted by remote control. In 1983 came a breakthrough. Cale Yarborough won the Daytona 500, and viewers were treated to a shotgun seat of the victory with an in-car-camera view. In 1986, CBS won an Emmy for its use of the in-car camera on the Daytona 500. Meanwhile, ESPN began putting cameras everywhere on cars in its NASCAR races. ESPN even developed what was known as "brake cam," which could show drivers taking their foot off the pedal and putting it on the brake. Now Fox, in the first year of an eight-year, $1.6-billion deal with NASCAR, has arrived on the scene with all kinds of new toys. One it showed off briefly during Sunday's race was something called "FoxTrax." It points arrows at particular cars from high camera angles and also displays graphics that show the speed of the car and its position in the race. Great idea, as is most of all the new technology. The danger, however, is that this is a dangerous sport. Most people don't want to see an up-close-and-personal look of someone as they are being killed. Fox didn't show any such shots Sunday, but it could have easily happened. And a nightmare of a day for Fox would have been even worse. FOX UNDER FIRE Fox has taken some heat for leaving the scene of the accident Sunday. It cut away from Daytona at 2 p.m. PST. On Channel 11, viewers got a rerun of "Grace Under Fire," starring Brett Butler. Some critics thought Fox showed anything but grace under fire, believing it should have stayed on the air and provided live updates on Earnhardt's condition, or at least broken in with the news of Earnhardt's death much quicker than it did. Fox reported the death at 4:10 p.m. PST, well after other news outlets, and only on Fox Sports Net and Fox News Channel, not on the main network that carried the race. Fox officials said they had to leave Daytona because they already had gone half an hour past their allotted time, and they initially didn't know the seriousness of Earnhardt's condition. Fox was in a no-win situation. If it had stayed on the scene in Daytona, surely some would have accused the network of being morbid. But it seems Fox should have been quicker to report Earnhardt's death and done it on all outlets, not just cable. David Hill, Fox Sports chairman, said he didn't want to report anything until it was official. Fox got into more hot water later this week when NASCAR told other news outlets that the Earnhardt family had granted only Fox Sports Net the right to cover Thursday's memorial service. Permission wasn't granted to other outlets until Wednesday night. Included in Fox Sports Net's coverage before and after the memorial was an interview Darrell Waltrip did with Earnhardt last week. Earnhardt said that his life was good, that "I've got it all," and "the Lord is looking after me." When Waltrip asked him if anything scared him, Earnhardt said, "Fire, dying in a fiery crash." Today at 8:30 a.m. Fox Sports Net will have coverage of a news conference with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Daytona 500 winner Michael Waltrip. IN CLOSING While Fox got a 10.0 national rating for the Daytona 500 Sunday, a 19% increase from a year ago, NBC got only a 3.1 for its XFL telecast Saturday, a 33% drop from the previous week and a 67% decrease from Week 1. The decline has caused NBC to give away some advertising as "made-goods." And one advertiser, Honda, has withdrawn its advertising. A buyer for Honda was quoted as saying, "We were promised football and instead got the WWF." That, in a nutshell, is the XFL's problem. The league hasn't decided what it is--another WWF with football as a backdrop or a legitimate winter football league. (BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC) What Los Angeles Is Watching A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for Feb. 17-18. SATURDAY *--* Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro football: XFL, Xtreme at Las Vegas 4 5.3 11 College basketball: Arizona State at UCLA 2 2.2 7 Golf: Bob Hope Chrysler Classic 7 1.7 5 College basketball: Arizona at USC 2 1.4 4 College basketball: Stanford at California 7 1.2 3 Auto racing: Busch Grand National Napa 300 11 0.9 3 Softball: Pepsi All-Star game 4 0.7 2 Basketball: National Hoop-It-Up finals 4 0.6 2 *--* * *--* Cable Network Rating Share Boxing: Guty Espadas vs. Erik Morales HBO 2.2 6 Drag racing: NHRA Kragen Nationals qualifying ESPN2 0.7 1 Auto racing: Winston Cup Happy Hour FX 0.2 0 Golf: Senior Verizon Classic CNBC 0.2 0 College basketball: Pepperdine at Gonzaga FSN2 0.1 0 *--* * SUNDAY *--* Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro basketball: Lakers at Indiana 4 7.2 15 Pro basketball: Utah at Sacramento 4 5.6 14 Auto racing: Daytona 500 11 4.6 11 Pro basketball: Phoenix at Philadelphia 4 3.5 8 Golf: Bob Hope Chrysler Classic 7 2.6 6 Figure skating: ISU Grand Prix Final, women 7 3.9 8 Soccer: Mexican League, UNAM vs. Irapuato 34 2.3 6 Pro football: XFL, Orlando at New York/New Jersey 13 2.0 4 College basketball: Duke at St. John's 2 1.1 3 College basketball: Seton Hall at Notre Dame 2 0.9 2 *--* * *--* Cable Network Rating Share Pro football: XFL, Chicago at Birmingham TNN 0.9 2 Drag racing: NHRA Kragen Nationals ESPN2 0.8 2 Bowling: PBA Tarheel Open ESPN 0.7 2 Horse racing: Santa Anita Live FSN2 0.5 1 Horse racing: Santa Maria Handicap FSN 0.3 1 Golf: Senior Verizon Classic CNBC 0.2 0 Hockey: Kings at Chicago FSN 0.0 0 *--* Note: Each rating point represents 53,542 L.A. households. Cable ratings reflect the entire market, even though cable is in only 63% of L.A. households.