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Supercars has by no means been asleep at the wheel when it comes to the docodrama phenomena.
By the time Drive to Survive went live in 2019 a Supercars version was already in the works. Inside Line tracked Erebus Motorsport across the 2019 season for a series that went to air in 2020. For the 2020 season (airing 2021) the subject was Walkinshaw Andretti. For the 2021 season (currently airing) the subject was Triple Eight Race Engineering.
Inside Line has consistently been a very good series. It is genuinely enjoyable content for the hardcore Supercars fan to sink their teeth into.
But it hasn’t been a smash hit. And there is little to suggest it has driven new fans to the live broadcast of Supercars races.
One reason for that is the broadcaster itself. Inside Line has traditionally been shown on Fox Sports, on the very channel that carries the live broadcasts. There is a generally a mid-week, primetime slot before episodes are repurposed in and around live broadcasts.
Another is the way it has been produced. In all three seasons, it has been TV produced by people that specialise on motor racing. The first season was produced by Supercars itself, with renowned motorsport TV producer Andrew Janson at the helm. The second season it was produced by AME, which specialises in two and four-wheeled racing content. AME founders Ryan Sanderson and Adam Bailey now head up the World SX series. And the third series was produced by AirTime Media, owned and run by lead Supercars commentator Neil Crompton.
In all three cases the product was excellent. Excellent motor racing content. Must-see viewing for hardcore Supercars fans. Shown on the very same channel as the Supercars live broadcast. What a brilliant value-add for the (critically-important) fans that already pay their Fox Sports subscription and show up to watch week-in, week-out. Something that, without a doubt, has its place.
But you can’t expect it to speak to people who have never thought about Supercars before.
Now there’s a new project in town. A fresh push into the docodrama space that is expected to be heavily based on DTS. It’s thought that the driving force behind the project is Barclay Nettlefold, the man now ultimately at the helm of Supercars since the buy-out late last year. Nettlefold’s background isn’t motor racing specifically, it’s sport and entertainment. As such he’s genuinely well-placed to judge what has and hasn’t worked from the previous approach to showcasing behind-the-scenes drama as a documentary.
The early signs are genuinely encouraging. Dreamchaser, the studio in charge of the pilot episode, has no current ties to motor racing. It is run by former Nine Entertainment CEO Hugh Marks and former Endemol Shine Australia CEO Carl Fennessy. Perhaps that will help create a product that has a different look and feel to the broadcast. Like DTS does with Formula 1.
Footage and interviews for the Supercars version of DTS were shot at the Bathurst 1000. Now a pilot is in the works, which will be shopped around to major TV networks and streaming services. The primary targets are believed to be Netflix, Amazon and Stan.
From here, there are some critical marks that need to be hit for this to work.
The first is getting the paddock on board. There are more than enough big personalities in Supercars. There is more than enough drama behind the scenes. But there is also an aversion to airing anything that even closely resembles dirty laundry. Take the Mark Winterbottom/Will Brown crash at Pukekohe as an example. A wrecked car, a heated exchange in the garage post-race… and within a day, drivers were posting comments on Facebook slamming Supercars own website for reporting on it. That wild misunderstanding of how media works, and its importance in driving interest in the sport, is a very real danger to this project.
Another example is the first season of Inside Line, which by far had to the most tabloid feel of the three so far. The main ‘character’ was Erebus CEO Barry Ryan, a man who loves his racing as much as anyone in the world and wears his heart on his sleeve. When things go wrong, Ryan doesn’t hold back.
It made for some compelling TV, but Ryan felt let down by Supercars when it went to air. He felt he’d been unfairly cast as a villain.
Of course it’s easy for me to downplay that experience for Ryan. I wasn’t the one copping the flack. But again, for this to work there needs to be an acceptance from those in the paddock that there will be heroes and villains. It’s the cornerstone of story telling, always has been.
Can you imagine what floats across the official channels of the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen on a daily basis? And how much worse that has become since DTS thrust Formula 1 to new heights of popularity? Of course, there are those in the F1 paddock that robustly oppose the way DTS over-dramatises things. Some refuse to take part. But in general, there is a sense that the greater good is worth the angst.
For the Supercars version to work, a similar attitude from the paddock is vital. Let the personalities be themselves. Let the drivers be rock stars. Let the drama be dramatic. It can’t feel like a PR push for Supercars. It needs to feel like a TV show.
The next critical point is the right broadcast partner. If it ends up on Fox Sports or Kayo, well, we’re back to the Inside Line issue. DTS works because it is on Netflix. And that’s where the bar that needs to be set for the Supercars version. The good news is that, amid an ongoing fight with the Australian government over local content quotas, any streaming service should be open to the idea of a well-made, compelling, locally-produced show.
Tied into that point is funding. DTS is so good because a lot of money goes into its production. If the Supercars version looks like a cheap rip-off, it just won’t work. Of course there is no expectation of DTS levels of investment, but Supercars could do worse than see this as a good way to spend some money. It’s potentially a marketing gold mine.
Even if the investment is there, avoiding the cheap rip-off tag is still a genuine challenge. DTS wasn’t the first sporting docuseries, it too was the response to earlier adopters such as Sunderland Til I Die. But it was the first real motor racing version. And anything that has come since has been measured against it. So the challenge for Dreamchaser is to create something that takes all the good things about DTS – the story telling, the character development, the re-establishment of drivers as household names – but doesn’t look like a knock-off. A huge challenge and one that is ultimately tied to the earlier point about the paddock adopting the concept and allowing themselves to be the characters required to make compelling TV.
There are factors that will help with that. By this not being the portrait of a single team like Inside Line, the load will be spread. Individuals should feel less targeted. Plus, following different teams will help create better context around rivalries. It will tell a more rounded story.
What the real opportunity for Supercars here is the potential to speak to new fans without alienating the existing fans. That’s a balance Supercars has struggled with in the recent past. For example, dumping popular TV talent like Mark Larkham and Riana Crehan because they were considered ‘too technical’ or ‘too motor racing’. They were both tone deaf decisions that, following massive fan backlash, were reversed.
This doesn’t have to be like that. If this new show is made properly, some existing fans will love it, some will hate it. But not being directly tied to the broadcast means those that feel it’s too shallow can just ignore it. As long as the existing broadcast product is protected for those fans, there will be something for everybody.
There are a huge number of challenges facing this project. But get it right and the pay-off is a wave of new fans. It has got to be worth a shot.
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