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Hard not to agree with TDK.
Less than a quid a day seems a small price to pay for a quality service.
no idea, do you really believe ATR do it better?
I bought the Setanta package specifically for RUK, with the footie and golf as nice to have add-ons. However…..there’s no way I would have bought it for £20/month on its own then, and I sure as hell can’t afford it now. It’s a big indulgence in the overall scale of things I need to pay for.
I’ll revert to ATR and terrestrial for free. I did it before and I think many more will be able to do the same.
Sorry if this has been asked before but could someone explain why ATR who put out considerably more hours is basically a ‘free’ channel as part of a package whereas we are expected to pay an additional £20 for Racing UK?
Because ATR has those annoying adverts and they are linked in with Sky.
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Less than £1 a day for a quality service is reasonable, gumshield, but when that service is far from flawless (if I have to listen to Angus McNae presenting whilst sucking a sweet again I’ll go nuts) and relates to only one channel, someone is taking the p*ss.
The entire Sky Sports package adds only £19 (per month) to the base rate subscription, so how can £20 for a horseracing-only product be considered good value?
So I’m supposed to go from paying £13 per month for Setanta Sports 1, Setanta Sports 2, Setanta Golf, Setanta Sports News, RUK and LFC TV, to £20 per month for just RUK?
No chance.
That will be the majority opinion on this subject. £20pm in the current climate is taking the mick bigtime
I really like Racing UK and cant stand ATR. There is no way though I am going to pay £20 a month when it was only £13 with Setanta. I hope the RUK bosses look at this forum to see how unhappy people are
Twenty bucks seems a bit steep when all they ever do is show replays all the time. When they do cover races they are good and have some good people on the channel. However, ATR have better programmes(get on etc..) and at least show some American races instead of the same old replays.
Half of the subscription is for the £9.99 a month website service. Maybe it should be optional as to whether people want to pay for an online service ?
Sorry if this has been asked before but could someone explain why ATR who put out considerably more hours is basically a ‘free’ channel as part of a package whereas we are expected to pay an additional £20 for Racing UK?
Because ATR has those annoying adverts and they are linked in with Sky.
Must admit I find them less annoying than those Racing UK have for it’s own product.
TDK makes a good point. Never take live racing on TV for granted. I went without for a month last year and I missed it enormously. You wont realise how much ’till its gone.
Richard Fitzgerald reckons 30 to 35 thousand "hard core" subscribers will pay the 20 quid which at his best case estimate comes in at 8.4 milion quid annually. Its not an enormous sum when you consider how much it much cost to broadcast live almost every day of the year, so perhaps they have no choice but to charge the fee they have set.
If you were already paying 13 quid a month for Setanta your being asked to stump up another 1.75 a week, not an enormous amount for what you get in return imo.
RUK is not perfect but overall they do a very good job and do listen to constructive criticism from viewers. I like the way they have now largely confined bookie reps to the start of a days action and paddock coverage has increased again over recent months, the coverage from Newbury this evening was good. Who knows, with it being independent again and funded by hard core racing fans they might go back to the days of pace diagrams, detailed course profiles etc..that used to feature in their coverage in earlier days.
Hopefully RUK has a viable, successful future ahead of it.
Punters will never concur about what constitutes value, and clearly some on here will vote with their feet and cancel their subscription to RUK.
But, in my opinion, anyone with a serious approach to betting on horse racing can afford to pay a fiver a week for a quality service, and I’ll be disappointed if RUK doesn’t survive.
But, in my opinion, anyone with a serious approach to betting on horse racing can afford to pay a fiver a week for a quality service, and I’ll be disappointed if RUK doesn’t survive.
Perfectly put.
But wouldn’t a better model be a reduced subscription supported by advertising?
OK adverts can be annoying but if it reduces subscriber costs and anyway RUK has plenty of self advertising already so it wouldn’t eat into the coverage too much.
But wouldn’t a better model be a reduced subscription supported by advertising?
OK adverts can be annoying but if it reduces subscriber costs and anyway RUK has plenty of self advertising already (which I don’t quite see the point of because they are already broadcasting to a captive audience) so it wouldn’t eat into the coverage too much.
BUT I got the Steanta Sports pack which included RUK for free with my XL TV pack with virginmedia – now, not only do I lose the Setanta bits but I seriously do not expect to be charged any extra for RUK as it was in my package.
The point about the monthly cost at less than half a cup of tea per day being value for horse racing fans is valid but I don’t want to pay more than I have been.
For me and many others the question is how will the cable and sky providers continue to rovide RUK without upping the costs – how many of these are in their ‘hard core’?
But, in my opinion, anyone with a serious approach to betting on horse racing can afford to pay a fiver a week for a quality service, and I’ll be disappointed if RUK doesn’t survive.
Well put indeed
Furthermore it strikes me as a little strange that the naysayers here, all of whom I suspect are punters, and therefore by definition have sufficient disposable income to feck around betting the horses are complaining about having to part with a paltry fiver a week in order to make their punting experience more enjoyable, and who knows perhaps even helping make it more profitable to the tune of a tenner a week.
Racing is a minority interest and niche market as evidenced by the current 55,000 subscribers to RUK and the postulated post-Setanta figure of 35,000. Given these small audiences a) we should be grateful we have an independent dedicated racing channel at all and b) given the overheads associated with outside broadcasting that limited audience can hardly expect to receive their entertainment for a pittance.
Sky Sports has a worldwide audience into many millions I’d imagine (don’t subscribe myself) showing for the most part ‘popular’ sports such as Golf and Cricket and therefore any comparison with the ‘value’ of its subscription to that of RUK is invalid.
The Internet is a terrific resource but its one drawback is we have a generation evolving that expects all information, entertainment and knowledge should be free or, at worst, as cheap as possible.
Anyone recall what the monthly subs was to the original pre-ATR1 Racing Channel. I suspect it was £20 too, ten years ago.
Cancelled my direct debit tonight, although it probably wouldn’t have been taken on the due date, but just in case!
I’m not sure if I will take up the £20 subscription yet. I did watch RUK, but I also subscribed to get the SPL games and now it will be racing only. I’m much more of a jumps man than flat and I wouldn’t mind paying a one off payment of £20 for the Cheltenham Festival & the Aintree Grand National meetings, but they are probably the only 2 I would be desperate to see all the races from.
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