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I don’t think it’s RMG bluster, Steve, it’s been ages since Irish racing has been shown on British terrestrial TV (further back in time it used to be quite common). ATR/SSR, whether it objects or not, has no choice but to let its British tracks be shown by ITV which has paid for the pleasure. Leopardstown may serve as a good advert to attract more subscribers to RTV but if a viewer has got RTV already why would he/she be viewing a substandard presentation on ITV in the first place!
Well if like me you cannot stand the dullards on Rtv like Peter Naughton zzzzzz, Stewart Machin zzzzzzz, Nick Luck zzzzzz etc then itv showing Irish Racing is fine with me. I will also get two races from Lingfield in HD as I still don’t have Sky Sports in HD.
@GoldenMiller34 are you employed by RTV? The other day you said SSR was inferior now you are saying ITV are substandard. Two utterly ridiculous statements. The pundits on RTV would send you to sleep and it is far from a polished production.
The following article is really good insight on where Sky intend to take their coverage of racing. And i have absolutely no doubt in a couple of years time when the contracts come up again quite a number of courses will be signing with Sky.
No, I’m not employed by RTV, James, and have been very critical of it repeatedly on this thread. It will be interesting to see how SSR (which I have given praise when due, just as you have many times criticised it) develops per the article. It’s nowhere near there yet.
All I can say to you and Steve is that to me RTV is at the moment streets ahead in appeal compared to SSR and ITV. Far from its personnel being boring and sending viewers to sleep it is my personal opinion that RTV has many (but not all) presenters and pundits that individually are head and shoulders above the combined worth of those on the other two channels. I suppose it all depends on what choice a viewer has and the level of intellectualism he/she is looking for in racing coverage.
The punditry on RTV is just so boring and not particularly easy to listen to. They aren’t particularly good at getting paddock interviews and inside info from trainers and jockeys. Also, the information provided on graphics is dreadful also.
Other than the actual footage of the race itself, RTV productions leave an awful lot to be desired
I have to disagree. Lydia is the best interviewer in the business, Nick Luck the best presenter and analysis from the likes of the Dixon Brothers is also good. Mark Howard also excellent.
Nevison is poor but then so is Cooper and many many others on SSR. RTV a mile ahead personnel wise for me.
As GM says, different strokes for different folks.
I don’t think RTV covered itself in glory today. For a start it’s the core Jumps season and there were two quality meetings so the unnecessary emergency garbage at Chelmsford should have received the barest minimum of coverage (a la Huntingdon on the Wednesday of the Cheltenham Festival). RTV should have gone over when one was left to go in. Instead, for example, it crossed to Chelmsford about 8 minutes before the first (which had a 1/9 favourite) and even then the race was 5 minutes late off (on top of the start time being officially pushed back 5 minutes) while viewers watched several men labour to manhandle some wretched creature into the stalls. Meanwhile, Martin Dixon was employed solely, it appears, as studio pundit for this glorified dog meeting.
At the same time there was no pundit alongside Lydia at Sandown – extraordinary! However, at Leopardstown there were two full presenter/pundit teams, one British and one Irish, plus the voice of Alex Steedman from deep in the bowels of RTV House. Totally unnecessary overkill. The coverage from the Irish track was disjointed, on both the main channel and the specialist ‘Irish Racing’ web channel which I cast, as RTV jagged from one set of voices to another. And on top of this the production on the extra channel was beset with technical difficulties, probably not surprisingly, especially early on in the afternoon. I wonder what Irish viewers made of it?
From the British viewer perspective I am beginning to wonder whether Irish racing is worth the disruption to what used to be excellent coverage of British racing. Too many Irish races are not run at a true pace. And, whilst I am critical of the course configuration and low sun problems at, for example, Kelso, here we had a huge festival meeting at supposedly one of Ireland’s premier tracks and in every Jumps contest one of the critical last two obstacles was omitted either due to low sun (low at less than an hour past midday, mind you!) or another reason. Mickey Mouse if you ask me.
Had Musselburgh and Wetherby been on it all would have been an even bigger shambles.
Racing Tv really has to up their game. It’s not normal for obstacles to be omitted in Ireland, today was the exception rather than the norm, although leopardstown does seem to be a course where this happens more often than other courses.
RTV has clearly not received the amount of viewers it had hoped, hence the current generous offer of €12 a month for the next 12 months. This is evidence of panic to get income in my view, and if they continue with such shoddy coverage as explained above then they will continue to struggle to generate sufficient subscriptions from individuals. Far too much time was dedicated to Chelmsford.
With a specialist channel covering a top festival I’d expect the main coverage to be focused on there, parade ring shots, proper informative graphics, pre race analysis of the form including clips of previous races, maybe a feature on leopardstown as a track. Coverage from sandown with a grade 1, a grade 3 and a listed race also warranted sufficient coverage, while the rubbish at Chelmsford should have been shown purely to show the race only, nothing else.
It is really dreadful for a specialist channel
I noticed Ed Chamberlain had to do a thank you to ARC today for them allowing itv to show Lingfield as GoldenMiller34 said above I thought itv could just show an ARC course so not sure why they needed to publically thank them, I can understand them thank BHA for moving the race times.
I watch Rtv on the betting site and irish feed had a much lower sound than the Sandown and this was very annoying.
Unless RTV were going to launch a 2nd channel aka Racing World like they did years ago with the American Racing, then they had absolutely no need to take the Irish rights other than the fact they thought they would put ATR / SSR out of business.
They simply cannot show all this on one channel and do it justice and just wait until the summer it’ll only get worse.
It was one of the reasons Chester / Bangor switched sides as they knew they would be marginalised on busy Saturdays
And Irish racing has been sold down the river by both SIS and RTV.
Any of you want to watch decent informative coverage of leopardstown, watch on RTE player online, coverage is head and shoulders above RTV
Not allowed to in UK, Wexfordman!
Quick bitch and moan: paying nearly a quid a day for sweet FA at the moment (though exceptional circumstances). And Towcester on Cheltenham Thursday switched to Market Rasen so this will join the previous day’s Huntingdon in interrupting Festival coverage on RTV as will any extra meetings depending on length of shutdown and backlog of horses wanting a run. That’s if there is a Festival.
First i’ve seen Floodlight turf racing on SSR today from Toulouse.
Not sure if its something the UK would ever introduce.
Wow, Irish racing does employ a decent commentator after all. Too bad he is also its best presenter.
@jamesh plans were muted by Chelmsford 2 years ago to start in april 2019 but not heard anything since
Long-term project for floodlit horse racing on turf set to become a reality at Chelmsford
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