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ITV racing enjoys Xmas high
Despite the year that 2020 threw at us, the channel has gone from strength to strength
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HE LAST RIGHTS had long been adminstered to terrestrial TV. First, courtesy of the arrival of Sky, then with the advent of freeview and even more multi-channels, followed by the digital explosion of online viewing, social media, Netflix and the growing transitory nature of the younger generation of viewers who pick and choose what they want, when they want and how they want to view. The static nature of a TV set working to a year’s worth of planned scheduling by the TV companies is now out of kilter with the incessant right-left scrolling of a mobile phone as it picks up endless and multitudinous entertainment options from around the globe for demanding users. And if terrestrial TV has only just been able to lever itself away from the grave of long-lost technologies, hanging on by its plug sockets to avoid the fate of such as the Fax machine and the round-dial phone, sport was deemed to be the first to tip the balance into the oblivion. Outside and live sports coverage is expensive and difficult to produce, its days are unpredictable and, aside
For TV producers racing came with an audience dislike of whip use, as well as the ever-present threat of injury to horses
from the god that is football (but whose rights are generally too expensive for terrestrial), many sports are of niche interest to a small collection of anoraked fans, and too long in the running to hold the gaze and attention spans of the millennials. And of all sports, racing was deemed the worst of the lot. Racing has long been believed to be unintelligible for most with its bizarre and strange lingo, and in the UK was perceived to only involve two sets of participants – a group of oddly small and often sullen athletes and a Downtown Abbey-esque class set left in limbo from a bygone pre-war era. For TV producers racing also came with a growing audience dislike of whip use, as well as the ever-present threat of injury to horses which, aside from the “live” TV sadness that could cause, was likely to result in a wave of protest letters and emails. Aside from bookmakers the sport was losing out as a suitable advertising medium and sponsorship for a commercial TV station. With these pressures, a changing and declining viewership and an expensive product to buy, when Channel 4, which had been resposonsible for the sport for 30 years and had done it proud, left the sport in 2016 considering it not worth the money, racing could have feasibly started to disappear from our main TV screens. The downward spiral could have become a free fall. ITV’s subsequent initial deal in 2016 was to cover the poster fixtures, including the Cheltenham Festival, Grand National, the Derby and Royal Ascot on its main channel with an additional minimum of 34 days annually on the main ITV The last day of “normal” ITV Racing coverage in 2020 was on Gold Cup day, the team seen here interviewing Paul Townend after Al Boum Photo’s victory. ITV has to be appauded for its coverage throughout the rest of last year which, despite the difficulties, continued to build on its viewership growth achieved in 2018 and 2019
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