While fighting against the usual plethora of sporting happenings over the festive period it may have slipped the attention of most casual observers that UK television rights for horseracing have now been snapped up by ITV for a sum believed to be in the region of £30million.
So far so what?
Horseracing is now added to a impressively growing collection of sporting rights that ITV is quietly amassing. They currently have England home international football qualifyers, football World Cup and European Championships (shared with the BBC), highlights of European club competitions, Rugby World Cup, Tour De France, French Open tennis and a growing collection of darts events throughout the year. What has concerned most horse racing fans is the decision by ITV to place the majority of the race days, believed to be around sixty, in the backyard slot of ITV4 with the rest, around thirty-four days, on the main ITV1 channel.
Horse racing on Channel 4 has been battling against an ever decreasing viewing audience. Although the 2015 Grand National audience peaked at 8.8million, by October 2015 Channel 4 was reporting an average viewing figure of a paltry 367,000. Racing fans are rightly concerned that if Channel 4 are struggling to bring in the audiences, how can ITV increase the numbers if they are sticking the sport of kings way back on ITV4?
ITV do have a long history of showing horse racing with their famous Saturday Seven in the 1970s and 1980s. Respected anchors Brough Scott and Lord Oaksey provided expert opinion with the venerable Graham Goode was the commentator and John McCririck gave betting analysis. All these moved to Channel 4 when began broadcasting horse racing in 1985 and gradually increased the number of races they showed as the BBC strated to unwind its sporting portfolio, eventually becoming the sole terrestial broadcaster of horse racing in the UK in 2013. Channel 4’s coverage has been, generally, one of excellence. Their pundits have been excellent, undoubtedly knowledgable and have an undoubted passion for the sport. However they did make some mistakes in later years. The decision to allow John McCririck, Derek Thompson, Alistair Down and John Francome go was a huge mistake. For all his faults, McCririck is actually quite a progressive person when it comes to horse racing, believing in a reduction (and possibly banning) of the whip and a more transparent racing industry (although I believe it will be highly unlikely that ITV will utilise his services as they seek a young audience), Derek Thompson always had a man of the people kind of image, able to interact with the public in the racecourse and Alistair Down had National Hunt racing flowing through his veins.
ITV could do worse than to bring back at least two of that foursome. My choice would be Alistair Down and John Francome. Down would work alongside the excellent Nick Luck. Nick Luck is a very capable presenter and I believe he would work very well with Alistair Down who could provide excellent analysis of a race’s history in the build up. Sir A P McCoy, Mick Fitzgerald and John Francome could provide unrivalled inside knowledge of horsemanship. Obviously keep Tanya Stevenson as the betting expert. There would still be room for Rishi Pershad and Alice Plunkett to do the roving reporting and interviews bith pre and post race.
ITV’s main challenge would be to keep the current horse racing fans entertained and bring in a new audience without alienating the current ones. it is a desperately tricky balancing act. A quick look at Twitter during Royal Ascot and you can imagine hardcore racing fans pulling their hair out as broadcasters move away from reviewing the horses to show us what kind of hat some celebrity is wearing but is a high wire act that a terrestial broadcaster has to overcome.
Waiting in the wings will be the satellite broadcasters. If terrestial channels continue to haemorrage viewers at this alarming rate the government will be under pressure to move the crown jewels of racing, Cheltenham, Epsom Derby and Grand National, open to all broadcasters as the excuse of maximum exposure will not be viable of only 350,000 people are tuning in weekly.
The next few years will be interesting.
Totally agree with all your comments here. Having been a racing fan from the early 1980’s I remember the great commentaries of yesteryear from Sir Peter O’Sullevan on the BBC and Graham Goode and Raleigh Gilbert, John Penney on ITV. Simon Holt is a very good commentator as well. May be a lot of us look at racing through rose tinted glasses when harking back to the so called “glory days” of Grandstand and World of Sport. When thinking of Channel 4’s coverage – the early days were great viewing, good coverage of major meetings and in depth analysis of the horses in the paddock. Sadly since the Beeb lost out and Channel 4 had the lot the presenters left a lot to be desired. Yes they know their stuff but that is not the be all and end all – you have to be entertaining and fun at the same time. I have been saying for the past 3 years to bring back the likes of Franks, Tommo, Big Mac, Alastair Down. ITV should bring a couple of those back at least as well as keeping Simon Holt and Emma Spencer from Channel 4. For betting purposes either get back Big Mac back or Tanya or reunite the both of them. He is entertaining, not everyone’s cup of tea but a lot livelier than some of 4’s presenters. Seen more life in a tin of sardines. The channel made a huge mistake in ridding the programme of its core presenters. As far as commentary duties are concerned, I think the BBC’s former number 1 Aussie Jim McGrath did a superb job and should be recruited along with Simon Holt. ITV’s decision to show a lot of the so called “smaller meetings” on ITV4 is not such a bad move as people are thinking. If people are wanting to watch the likes of Wetherby, Wincanton and Chepstow they will regardless of what channel it is on. Yes, the Festival and the National, Derby etc must be on the main channel to give those meetings the best chance of reaching a bigger audience. I wish ITV good luck in the next 4 years with its coverage, but being old school nothing will ever beat the BBC’s coverage of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s with Sir Peter’s mammoth commentaries. Sadly it seems the BBC doesnt care about racing any more, indeed they seem less and less interested in keeping a lot of sport -look at the Open Golf and F1. Eventually the way the BBC is going they won’t have any sports left worth an interest in 5 years time.