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Another interesting point is the betting shows on the big screens and cctv at most racecourses is fed directtly from ceefax (courses who pay Racetech for a premium service have a more bespoke presentation style but I believe these are also fed from the ceefax feed).
The betting updates given by the commentators on-course are also taken from ceefax.
Sadly I think this is just another example of the BBC’s disregard for our sport. As was eloquently pointed out by Maxilon 5 earlier in this thread the erosion of the BBC coverage of racing has been relentless over the past few years.
You can also bet your bottom dollar that when the Fallon et al trial begins in a fortnights time the BBC will suddenly start giving wll to wall coverage of the trial – they will have a field day.
"Afterall, how many other ‘newbies’ have commanded so much interest?
Mike"
This just about sums up your contribution to this forum. Generating interest for an ego merchant and polluting the best racing forum on the net.
I can’t help seeing them as a two faced liberal channel which constantly trashes more traditional/conservative ideas, just my rant.
For as long as its news team includes card-carrying, unabashed right-wingers such as Nick Robinson and Jeff Randall, and its entertainment schedule permits the likes of Clarkson to shoot from the hip, I wouldn’t regard that as a wholly accurate portrayal of Auntie Beeb.
I guess our views on this and other channels are inevitably coloured by how much we get out of them, and on that basis alone I still regard the BBC with more fondness than any other of its contemporaries. BBC2’s evening / night schedule finds particular favour, even with 100-odd Virgin Media channels vying for my attention.
I will miss Ceefax Racing to a certain extent, although as Mike has pointed out (however abrasively) the clock has been ticking on it for some time due to its analogue residence and the decision taken has merely brought forward the inevitable.
What it does mean, however, is that at the same time as the racing calendar is swelling to its biggest size ever, so the number of people covering it in the more – how does one best put it – established media organs continues to shrink. No more Ceefax, barely anything left of racing on BBC television or radio, and a Racing Post probably disinclined to recruit until the fallout from any takeover is fully established.
Racing is too ubiquitous a sport to drop out of mainstream consciousness entirely – the huge coverage, not all entirely horserace-oriented, accorded to the Grand National and Royal Ascot alone will ensure that. However, those of us fortunate enough to derive any manner of paid employment from the racing media may consider Ceefax Racing’s end as a further sign that that employment will increasingly be wrought from smaller, more disparate, less visible, but arguably more dedicated organs hereafter.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Pity those who have never experienced waiting for the screen to turn over with 1st, 2nd, 3rd…….
Aye, enjoyable if nerve-wracking, much more so than watching a race, particularly when the result appears a few minutes after it should, as is often the case. Am I the only one who switches to whatever is showing on the TV while the race is on, then after an estimate of the time taken to run the race switches back to Ceefax, closing my eyes momentarily as I do so?
I’ll miss Ceefax Racing, it remains the first port of call for news, going updates and race results. What is surprising is that it was markedly improved just a few years ago and given its own section away from the 300 sports pages.
Max
The Wireless and BBC 4 are the saving grace of the Beeb and worth the ton+ per year, other than that I agree wholeheartedly with your views on the "brain-melt" we’re subjected to nowadays.
From the article flagged up by Wit it seems that only 4 jobs may be lost.
Overall it is nothing to do with racing but a general cut back in staff as many other jobs are also under threat.Meridian TV have just announced plans for 40 job cuts following the Granada takeover and another 30 jobs are to go at Anglia TV.
B.A.A. have just annouced plans to shave 2,000 jobs following the purchase by Spanish giants Ferrovial.
Sony are planning 20,000 jobs worldwide and Airbus are shaving 10,000 jobs in the next 4 years.
NTL have plans to axe 6,000 jobs whilst the merger betweenThomas Cook and Mytravel will cost 2,500 jobs.
The recent bank problems in the U.S.A may cost around 5,000 jobs in the city of London and those lucky to survive may well see the massive bonuses they used to receive slashed.
Even the makers of Viagra are cutting hundreds of jobs in Kent.
On a brighter note there is a vacancy at The Honey Club on Brighton beach for a sous chef at the rate of £5.35 an hour!
The current basic wage.The way of the world at the moment!
I’ve never known ATR text to work properly for all of one day since the channel started, it seems to deterioate throughout the day before grinding to a halt in the evening.
Aye, enjoyable if nerve-wracking, much more so than watching a race
A suitable epitaph
I also found it a very handy refuge if watching telly with my daughter and something unexpectedly unsuitable popped up. I for one will certainly miss it.
Drone, agreed, but even the radio isn’t what it used to be.
Local radio, marb? If you follow the dominant, (i.e. most supported) club in a given city, you’re alright. If you follow a smaller club, you are in bother. The local BBC station is known by followers of my club as Radio Red and as such, is pathologically hated.
Incidentally, it’s time we bombarded the powers-that-be at Ascot to point out the BBC’s lack of committment. Do the BBC really deserve to broadcast the best Flat meeting in the UK? Even Sky showcase matches such as Bolton vs Middlesborough every now and again.
I see Humphrey’s and Paxman are at each on others throats now over it, that’ll be interesting, I read at one point Paxman referred to him as the “most famous welshmen”.
Paxman has obviously never met any of the plethora of Welshmen on this forum, then.
Paxman actually emerges from the spat with far more credit than Humphrys, the latter suggesting that Radio 4’s Today is worthier of adequate funding than Newsnight whilst the former rightly retorts that it should be possible to find the money to fund both adequately from an income of £3.2bn per annum.
ps, i’m not a tory toff or anything Jeremy, working class is where my roots lie, but there are some things and organisations in this country that just smell of liberal bias and cheese.
Indeedy, but I still wouldn’t regard Auntie Beeb as one of them. In fact, with regard to depth of coverage of certain issues such as Europe, it doesn’t go anywhere near to being transparent and liberal enough; user-friendly, “beginners’ guide” descriptions of EU events, directives and the like are eschewed in favour of shamefully superficial detail which do little to assist understanding (and maybe even, heaven forfend, tolerance).
Meanwhile, back at the topic, have you ever tried to view Ceefax during a thunderstorm? The screen gets all scrambled like an explosion at the Scrabble factory. Someone I once knew claimed watching it in this state to be a perfect, legal, free ersatz hallucinogenic. Apparently he’ll be allowed visitors at weekends again sometime soon.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
A sad day. I’m still a user of Ceefax, it’s still probably the most convenient way of finding results- 4 presses of a button, sat in your own armchair, to get from dross afternoon programming to a huge well of racing news.
The cutbacks on racing on the BBC really are starting to verge on the ridiculous. I doubt it would have been more sudden had Adolf Hitler suddenly been appointed head of the BHB!But in all seriousness, I struggle to see why Ceefax racing was such a drain on BBC resources, as the vast majority of the work was done by Hills’-employed journalists. Also, according to the BBC spokesman:
“The decision also reflects changing audience behaviour, with more and more people using the internet and other digital services to get their racing news, rather than relying on Ceefax as their only source of information.â€
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Just my view, but isn’t it really racing’s problems, rather than the BBC’s, that have brought this about?
What was once a fascinating sport has now become, in the main, a mind-numbingly turgid vehicle for milking Joe Public, and the BBC, rightly, doesn’t need to be part of that.
Aren’t the bookmakers, and their acolytes such as Savill and Donoghue, really to blame for all this?Reet, there is enough high quality racing to compensate for the Savillian dross only addicts can cope with. Every day there is a race worth analysing and watching.
Sorry for multiple posting on the same topic, but I am passionate about this subject.
Racing should be promoted by the country’s premium channel. (Does anyone remember Speedway?).
Horse racing is the sixth largest industry – and one of the oldest professional sports – in this country. It has been criminally neglected this year by the BBC and they need to be told. Vehemently and en masse.
[quote="Friggo"
“The decision also reflects changing audience behaviour, with more and more people using the internet and other digital services to get their racing news, rather than relying on Ceefax as their only source of information.â€
I’ve never known ATR text to work properly for all of one day since the channel started, it seems to deterioate throughout the day before grinding to a halt in the evening.
ATR text has improved it used to keep flicking on the pages a few months back but is generally improved.
ATR text is generally quicker to update and reach the page than RUK’s which can take forever and they sometimes have two pages of betting.
As for Ceefax they are the only one who do dog racing arent they so it may affect this area of racing too
Racing is not seen by the BBC as a politically correct or fashionable sport. The thinking there is more likely to be along those lines than any concept of service
Look at the sports covered by their own Radio 5 in the evenings. Formula one (what do they find to talk about for more than 10 minutes ffs), Boxing (how many watch that now), athletics (discredited and finished)….but no programme for racing…which at the very least has plenty of conversation points
I’ve never known ATR text to work properly for all of one day since the channel started, it seems to deterioate throughout the day before grinding to a halt in the evening.
ATR text has improved it used to keep flicking on the pages a few months back but is generally improved.
ATR text is generally quicker to update and reach the page than RUK’s which can take forever and they sometimes have two pages of betting.
steveh31, ATR text has never worked properly even for 1 day, look at page 114 now
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