So would you like the presenting style more ATR than RUK?

Aren't RUK and Channel 4 made by the same production companies?

This would explain the similarity as I have always said RUK have too much power in racing and their monopoly should be investigated.

Channel 4 Racing for the 'working class punter' compared to the BBC ? Eh? Never EVER seen that. BBC always was very 'common' with personalites, explanations on everything for new watchers, fashion stuff and other fluff. CH4 has always had a little bit more in depth stuff for seasoned Horse Racing experts.

I find that a lot of the show being stuffed in a studio being technical around a touch screen takes away the joy the old production had. Before the changes you still had that type of analysis from Francome and McGrath but it was short and sweet and during the afternoon show you actually rarely saw them in vision. The presenters were always in the heart of it as well in the winners enclosure. That left me feeling like I was at the track in the heart of it. The new way just doesn't for me.

Well I always saw that the other way round. I only ever watched the jump racing in winter though. Not the flat. Suppose I would think differently if I'd been watching watching royal ascot type racing when BBC had it.

Well said. The programme has lost its sense of fun since IMG took over production. The ITV/Channel 4 coverage was always historically more enjoyable than the BBC's, even in the old days (the BBC's one major strong point historically was Sir Peter O'Sullevan, aside from that ITV/Channel 4 was always stronger).

Yes, the programme probably did need enhancing (I think the racecourse studio they now have is an asset, for instance), and some fresh faces would've been welcome, but the new programme is serious and staid. There were dirty tricks in the way IMG got the production contract and the whole thing leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

Is it ? I thought, and reading above that would back me up, that he was very warmly accepted by most.

Poor commentary from Mark Slater on the big race today. He said Harry Topper fell and then a minute later he said "Just behind them is Harry Topper"

The soul that is missing is the fact that they are hosting from a portakabin on wheels and not out in the open with the general public being in the thick of things and when Thommo was on board he'd often sidestep to get a comment or a snap shot from someone nearby that just does not happen. As for McGrath i'm sure he'd be happier back in his shed next to the paddock with Francome. Nick Luck is just too wooden and predictable.

Interesting that BT Sport now have dropped the studio and do their premier league coverage pitch side maybe C4 need to look at this I know Luck wouldn't want to be mingling with common members of the public if he doesn't have to.

Read my post again and you'll find I didn't make any criticism of musical montages to round off any coverage ... I was replying specifically to another forum member's snobbish view that it was poor form by Channel-4 not to run a lengthy name-check of production credits at the end of its Cheltenham Festival coverage.

in fact, I reckon those musical montages can be a very appropriate finale when the whole screen can be devoted to the pictures that complement the music.

But they're ruined by the prehistoric notion that you have to waste big chunks of the screen name-checking everyone from the paper-clip counter upwards who's helped with the coverage ... sure enough, that's exactly what BBC-1 did this evening by compressing its pictures into two-thirds of the screen so that it could fill the other third with the umpteen names of its 6-Nations production staff.

Not sure how he confused Pete the Feats colours with Harry Toppers

I find C4's current coverage very Odd, This is just my opinion but I think it lacks the fun and the relaxed feeling that C4 always used to have, it lacks the Tradition and the gravitas feel that the BBC's used to have. So it's kind of a strange melange of blandness, it's not terrible but it's not particularly enjoyable.

I'm into racing and know (I think!) a bit about it and I don't feel C4 need to pander so much to the hardcore fans, thats not their job. They have in my opinion replaced the BBC as the Maximum Exposure casual audience "Hunters". They should be trying to get people who would usually watch all the time watch the big meetings.

If they don't do that I feel racing will suffer.

I think it was a big mistake taking the barebones the BBC had left over to C4, the situation before last year was in my opinion good for racing. You got mass FTA C4 coverage, Big exposure from the BBC. And I am sure the Big Exposure from the BBC must have helped C4 as well.

I don't know, I'm just a fool with black socks!

Both Channel 4 Racing's main presenters - Clare Balding and Nick Luck - come from the upper echelons of society but have vastly different abilities when connecting with the broad social sweep of viewers who enjoy horse racing.

One of them is superb at adapting to any situation and therefore she gets the best out of any situation whether it's chatting with royalty or joining a happy mob of owners/friends celebrating a big life-changing win.

The other is Channel 4 Racing's biggest problem by a long way because while he's liked by the racing hierarchy (and has won several awards for his work), he simply doesn't have the social skills to mix well with those he clearly feels should always be beneath him.

Think about it ... if you'd put the two of them in each other's role during the last few days at Cheltenham, she would've still found ways to make the infield studio discussions entertaining but he'd have sunk without trace when dealing with the more raucous celebrations in the winners' enclosure,

The sooner Channel 4 wake up to how many viewers Nick Luck continues to drive away, the better.

Channel 4 take comfort from Cheltenham Gold Cup viewing figures

• 1.53m watch blue riband race, up 50,000 on 2013
• Average audience for coverage lower than last year

Channel 4 Racing was able to take some comfort from its Cheltenham Gold Cup viewing figures, its Friday programme peaking at 1.53 million, marginally up on last year's peak of 1.48 million. Although the average audience of 804,000 was below its 2013 equivalent, as had been the case through the week, it was down by only 4% and the audience share was up by 1.5%, another consistent theme of the week.


A Channel 4 spokesman promised there would be a "significant marketing campaign", launching in the next fortnight, to promote April's Grand National. The race achieved a peak of 8.9m when shown on Channel 4 for the first time last year but the broadcaster will be under pressure to repeat that after a 28% decline in its audience for the Champion Hurdle on Tuesday.


"The broad thing is, if you look back on the five-year trends, the figures have always fluctuated," the spokesman said. "They depend on a range of factors, of which the weather is one, and much depends on the total TV audience."


He said viewers on Friday would have been impressed by the drama of the stewards' inquiry hearing, shown as-live after a short delay. He did not accept it was a fault that the programme thereby missed, by seconds, the live announcement of the inquiry's result.


Channel 4's preview show, The Morning Line, scored 228,000 viewers on Friday, up 13% on the equivalent programme in 2013. That was a most welcome improvement, as Thursday's Morning Line scored 132,000, one of the smallest audiences in the programme's history.


Chris Cook - The Guardian

Some sad news; the former BBC racing presenter and commentator Julian Wilson has died following a long battle with cancer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/horse-racing/27103241

RIP Julian.

Sad news, I remember growing up watching racing when it was himself and Peter O'sullivan leading the way on BBC with Jimmy Lindley and John Hanmer.

Good old days racing but so sad that we lose another great broadcaster.

Tribute to Julian Wilson from Clare Balding on Channel 4 today ...

... but she didn't mention the time (during their ill-cast stint as co-presenters, by which time Wilson was very clearly on his way out) when he faxed in under a false name just so that she could read the name "Miss R Soles". Or the bit in his autobiography where he says she had "survived the jungle radio of Chris Evans on Radio 1", as if Ocean Colour Scene and Kula Shaker had been at the cutting edge of the mid-1990s black Atlantic.

I was never a huge fan of Wilson, I found him stuffy, rather arrogant and lacking in the sort of charm that came so easy to John Oaksey. Obviously he was a major figure in racing television for 30 years, but a lot of racing fans never warmed to him.
Indeed, apart from Peter O Sullevan, BBC racing coverage was always behind that on ITV and Channel 4.

Expect an announcement in the next few days that Gok Wan will be the fashion expert for C4's coverage of Royal Ascot; he was pictured in Wednesday's Racing Post in top hat and tails with the article stating that he would be part of C4's coverage of the Royal meeting, doing the fashion segments, a role which was carried out last year by Brix Smith-Start, who has been on Wan's programmes on C4 in the past.

Tanya was off today with vertigo
http://www.racingpost.com/news/live....334&category=0

Australian racing commentator Wayne Wilson has died aged 66. Look's like from the tributes that he's regarded as a big influence on modern commentary, much like Aussie Jim McGrath.

How much acrimony was there in the BBC TV horse racing team?

I've heard about the time when Julian Wilson thought he was going to become the main commentator when Peter O'Sullevan was approaching 65 as he thought O'Sullevan was going to retire but O'Sullevan decided to stay on. That must have been a real kick in the teeth for Wilson.

In the old days of BBC Grandstand on a Saturday, Wilson was relegated to the paddock team from venues of the likes of Haydock Park and Chepstow in between coverage of other sports.

Very few if anybody liked Wilson.

What was the story behind the BBC TV head racing commentators job and Julian Wilson and Peter O'Sullevan.

I thought it was hilarious. Julian Wilson must have been so bitter that everybody loved Peter O'Sullevan but nobody liked him.

Wilson wasn't actually a very good commentator and not good enough to do the BBC job