Relief at improved Derby viewing figures

TELEVISION viewing figures for the Epsom Derby provided horseracing with its first big payback after switching the live rights from Channel 4 to ITV at the start of the year. The armchair audience who saw Wings of Eagles’ shock 40-1 win was the largest since 2013. The average audience of 820,000, with a peak of 1.7million, was a significant improvement on C4’s 2016 average of 628,000 and a peak of 1.3m. The figures, plus an increased audience share of 11.3 per cent, will bring great relief to ITV Sport and the Racecourse Media Group who awarded the network a four-year contract on the premise of attracting more viewers to the main events on the racing calendar. The improvement for the Epsom blue-riband race — and the audience for the Oaks on Friday was also up on 2016 by a similar amount — followed desperately disappointing figures for the Grand National that were nearly 2m down on C4’s Aintree farewell. And with ITV’s first Cheltenham Festival under the new deal in March failing to show the expected rise in viewers after a huge build-up, much was resting on the Derby for ITV. A successful Epsom also means ITV are on an upward curve moving into Royal Ascot, which will be another hugely critical week for TV ratings. It is the race meeting where the decline in C4 racing after the production contract was moved from Highflyer to IMG for the last four years was most exposed.