ITV SEAL DEAL FOR RACING TV RIGHTS

ITV SPORT have snatched the TV rights to horse racing away from Channel Four after the closest of tenders. The official announcement of a four-year contract from 2017 expected next week will be significant compensation for ITV, who narrowly lost out to C4 for the Formula One contract relinquished by the BBC. ITV are understood to have agreed to show between 25 and 40 days of the best racing on the calendar on ITV1, including the Grand National, Cheltenham, Royal Ascot, Goodwood, the Derby and the other Classic races plus Kempton on Boxing Day. The rest of the 90-days-a-year that C4 currently cover will be broadcast on ITV4. The biggest pressure for change is believed to have come from Ascot and Epsom, whose audiences have fallen dramatically in recent years. Racing is banking on ITV delivering bigger audience numbers for all the sport’s marquee occasions. However, the smaller tracks staging the less glamorous racing fare, who are likely to lose audience figures on ITV4 compared to C4, will not be so enamoured of the change. But the Racing Media Group have taken the bold decision that the sport needs to maximise its marquee meetings on the biggest TV platform available. ITV are believed to be paying a lot more than C4’s £15million over four years, but the greater ITV exposure was seen as just as important as the money in growing the sport. A significant bid from Sky was turned down because their overall reach was not considered big enough. C4 will consider themselves hard done to after their commitment to the sport — especially after the signing of Sir Tony McCoy as a pundit and Clare Balding returning to present more often in 2016. But their racing coverage has been consistently criticised for not having enough personality since it was revamped three years ago.