Aftershow; that's a really well thought out piece. The kind that ITV need to hear as they need to take on board as many views as possible.

I particularly like the journalists bit. The old 4 coverage used to feature a wide spectrum but the new 4 seem to rotate between 3 or 4.
ITV could use some of the excellent and passionate writers that are out there, particularly on the magazine show.

RE: Alan Lee, he's a huge loss to racing. A brilliant journalist, fine writer and he came across as a really nice man. RIP.

That's a very good point you make Darren Lethem. I wish that there was a like button on Digital Spy. Any TV channel that covers horse racing should choose the best presenters available regardless of their ethnic background.

Piece on the Racing Post website this evening saying that, from a list they've seen, only the 2,000 Guineas will be on ITV1. The 1,000 Guineas along with the July meeting and Future Champions Day will be on ITV4

http://www.racingpost.com/news/live....724&category=0

I wonder if ITV would televise the Breeders Cup and The Arc?
I guess they are events us fans like but won't mean a lot to the average Joe.
Paddy Power day is another one. It's often fallen on a blank Premier League weekend in recent years and draws massive crowds

They would never show the breeders cup as most people do not bet in it so there be little advertising revenue.

Basically ITV have done the maths, they are not paying for the racing. They are banking on the advertising revenue covering the cost.

My word, I had completely missed that. He was no age

I see the RP are reporting that they've seen a schedule that, for Newmarket, shows the 1,000 Guineas, the July Cup, both legs of the Autumn Double and Future Champions Day are not currently slated to feature on ITV1.

ill be very surprised if that remains the case, surely a classic would be on ITV1?

May have to move the 1000 Guineas to the same day as the 2000

I can't believe the RP story either.
It's very difficult to look at the fixture list and find 34 days to go on ITV without including the 1000 Guineas.

When it 1st announced I thought these would make the ITV1 schedule.
It would be odd of the 1,000 guineas was omitted, perhaps they want a couple of summer festivals in, Chester and York for example?

I can't see ITV1 wanting to show racing on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the same weekend......I'd guess that they're not even going to show many Saturday fixtures in ITV1 unless they form part of the Festivals

If they're only going to show 34 days in total and there are 52 Saturdays that's 18 Saturdays with no ITV1

If you start totting up the midweek days of the Cheltenham Festival, Epsom, Royal Ascot, Aintree, York, Glorious Goodwood ?........you easily get another 15-20 non Saturday days..........so now we're up to 30-odd Saturdays with no ITV1

Comments from Simon Bazalgette
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/201...station-output
And John McCririck
http://www.racingpost.com/news/live....224&category=0

If you work from the Jockey Club's list of principal races, which is presumably what makes up the 94 days of racing, then there are Saturdays without racing anyway. This year there are two in January, two in March, one in April and one in December. So that's six Saturdays to eliminate straight away.

So next you look at where ITV have already committed ITV's 34 days:

Cheltenham 4 days
Grand National 3
Derby 2
Ascot 5
Champions Day 1
Goodwood 5
Ebor 4
St Leger 4

That's 28.
So you're left with 6 days, of which we now know the 2,000 guineas is one.
Boxing Day is almost certainly another.

So now look at reasons for racing not to be on ITV4.

In July, ITV4 show the Tour de France for three weeks, so there are two Saturdays there that would get moved to ITV: John Smith's Cup at York, and the King George VI at Ascot.

In February and March, three snooker tournaments and one darts tournament. Betfair Hurdles, Imperial Cup, Winter Derby at Lingfield Park.

In October and November, three darts and one snooker: November handicap at Doncaster, Cheltenham Gold Cup, Hennessy Gold Cup.

So they will be running more than 34 days on ITV at least until some of these other sports rights expire.

Very useful analysis.

However I’m not sure it’s totally clear cut:

1) I remember ITV3 being used in the past when there was a clash between two events normally shown on ITV4.

2) There can be flexibility in the scheduling of (especially) darts tournaments. There doesn’t have to be a Sat afternoon session at all and indeed there was no Sat afternoon session at the PDC World Champs which ended last weekend. Even if they did want to have one there would also be the possibility of starting at 4pm after the racing.

That seems to be a case of someone saying a lot without saying much at all.

The conclusion that racing's "core TV audience" has grown appears to me to be rather wishful thinking. Anecdotally, I'd say that a lot of veteran followers of the sport have been turned off by C4's coverage. Couple that with the fact that C4's audience is generally younger anyway, and I wouldn't be surprised if the claim that the audience has got younger is true, but it's not exactly an achievement.

I'm not sure you need the 4 days from the St Leger meeting on ITV1. Soom rather ordinary racing.

This is the provisional list that was printed in the Racing Post, only one day of the St Leger meeting on ITV1

https://twitter.com/leemottershead/s...93921688088576

I don't see a lot wrong with that.

Tough on Newmarket and the 1,000 guineas, normally falls on a Sunday of the May bank holiday. ITV will show a Bond film.

That list looks OK apart from the fact that there would be no racing on ITV1 between the Hennessey and Cheltenham.......maybe around 3 and a half months

King George will be on.
10 weeks then, I would hope they'd sneak Tote gold trophy (or whatever it is now) in. One of Jump racings premier handicaps.

It's got Boxing Day on ITV1 as well.

When you first click on the link you can't quite see the whole thing - click again on the list and it fully opens to show Boxing Day at the bottom of the list!

The full list (including Boxing Day) then adds up to 34 days.

Am I missing something here, why would a major classic not be shown on ITV 1 yet the other's are?

I know it falls on a different day to the 2,000 but surley as its a year away some kind of alterations could be made, even if it means showing both on the same day now that would be a bumper race day for Newmarket, punters and viewers.

A December interview with Rishi and Nick
http://vgtips.co.uk/channel-4-racing...-areas-part-2/

So the problem is horse racing and nothing to do with C4 and its presenters who get more air time than the horses.