The irony of that is that it's the longer-serving members of the team whom viewers still seemed to appreciate - it was the general change of style that had gone down badly. In Holt's and McGrath's cases, for instance, I don't think anybody would argue that their contribution to the IMG era had resulted in its reduced popularity.


Totally agree. Whilst it might have been unrealistic to expect all the old faces to have agreed to return for a final farewell, some probably would have - and it was of no real detriment to IMG or C4, as their coverage was ending anyway.

Interesting that the presenter of the 'freeview' coverage of Newbury on Saturday on RUK is Nick Luck

Wouldn't surprise if he ventures back there as a full time presenter again.

IMHO ITV have bought the rights solely in the hope of getting ten million viewers for one horse race in early April. My guess is that figure wont be achieved and the network will be looking to terminate the contract before the 4 years are up

Theres far cheaper ways of getting 10m viewers for 1 hour than that. There's plenty of value in the contract imo, particularly thanks to the rise in onlinebookmaking. I remember a few years ago the jockey club had to pay c4 to show racing. As it is, the contract allows itv plenty of live sport to fill daytime schedules-something which will be useful going forward as more people use catch up services to access their non live programmes.

Agreed. This is about filling 500 hours of television and knowing that you can get sponsorship to pay for it, and advertising to make profit from it.

fair points

Alice Plunkett will be part of the ITV team.


Probably not, as he will be the on-course commentator at the big meetings, where Richard Hoiles will be doing the same for ITV. It has already been reported that Holt will be commentating at Ascot's next two meetings (which both have Grade 1 races) and it will be a major surprise if he's not calling at the Cheltenham Festival, the Grand National, The Derby, Royal; Ascot and Newmarket's big meetings.

I'm sure the courses have already started the stampede for Holt's services.

Absolutely, the guy will not be short of work, he will still be heard across the country, like you say his services will be in huge demand.

At least Channel 4 had the opportunity to reflect and say goodbye, I was always very disappointed that in 2012 the BBC were denied that opportunity when the Welsh National day was postponed and the rescheduling fell under the new C4 contract.

Only mentions of the IMG era during the last 30 minutes.

I thought C4's goodbye section was a bit of a damp squid with little mention of the pre-IMG era which were imo its best days.

Holt has tweeted that he will be pcalling races for both Racing UK and Sky Sports' ATR in future, in addition to his course commentating.

There is Horse Racing on STV on New Years day

As you'd expect, given there is the same horse racing in all the other regions.

Like i have been saying, infact everyone on here recently the guy will have no shortage of work thats for sure.

I wouldn't be surprised if he is the most sought after commentator in any sport at the moment

RUK and ATR don't have separate callers do they ? They take the course commentary

Yes .........they always seem to take course commentary

it's not unusual to hear the commentator on the public address when they 'go up to the comm box'

and of course it means they take each other presenters when they are on commentary duty as quite a few of the presenters double up as commentators

The on-course commentator is hooked up to the TV coverage though as if they cross to the commentator before the race start they usually say "thank you" etc and then the PA kicks in as they set off.

Not long now https://www.weatherbys.co.uk/news/de...ra-dawns-for-i
https://www.weatherbys.co.uk/news/de...s-new-racing-a

The Opening Show http://www.sportinglife.com/racing/n...e-opening-show

More press coverage for ITV http://www.telegraph.co.uk/racing/20...ack-spotlight/
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...man-racing-itv

Richard Hoiles: 'We can be a little bit less precious. I can see it being more two-handed in terms of commentaries. I can see us seeking views of Tony McCoy and Mick Fitzgerald during the quiet period of a three-mile novice chase when not much is happening.'
http://www.racinguk.com/news/article...-itv challenge

There's a "Chamberlin told The Telegraph..." quote in that article which looks remarkably similar to a Chamberlin quote that was distributed by the Press Association (and which has been attributed to PA in other articles)

You need to a be an RUK customer to read that article but I can't say any of that sounds especially new.