- This topic has 34 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 18 years, 12 months ago by
.
- Posts
I haven’t been in a betting shop for years, but I have been reading that some courses aren’t supplying pictures to the shops now.
Is this true and what’s going on?
Newbury didn’t last week, they aren’t on SIS due to a dispute with hopefully a new rival TV company called Turf TV. If bookmakers want to show pics from these tracks they’ll need to subscribe to ATR or RUK (whichever shows that track)
Dave…here goes at an explaination as I understand it:
As from Friday the current contracts between a handful of courses (Ascot & Newbury inc) and SIS (60% owned by the Big 3) to provide live betting shows and pictures from the courses to betting shops have not been renewed by the courses. On the 1st Jan 2008 the number of courses involved will increase to approx half.
However, betting shows and pictures are available to Betting shops via Turf TV which now has the contracts with the courses involved. In order to receive this service each Betting shop will be charged approx £12,000 per year (in addition to the current approx £4,000 SIS currently charge).
As of Friday the Big 3 have refused to sign up to Tuft TV, for reason of obvious self interest and betting shows and prices are not available in their shops from the courses involves.
To overcome this the current betting shows are still being provided by their own men (SIS), and as I understand it offically aren’t offical, not that this really exists, also the good old blower is back.
And it looks like this standoff will remain until either turnover for the big 3 decreases with punters going to independents where the pictures are available or Turf Tv fail to raise the funds to fulfil their contracts with the courses. Not sure we will see much impact this Summer but things may get interesting next year. :biggrin: ÂÂÂ
All in all just other greedy bun fight with little or no regard to your average punter.
(Edited by Pompete at 1:56 am on April 27, 2007)
Hi Dave
By Jan 1 2008 SIS will have lost picture and data rights from 31 courses (the RUK courses plus Ascot) to a new rival called Turf TV,  owned by those courses and betting shop service provider company Alphameric.
That will put all the quality courses with Turf TV, and the bookies who own SIS (basically Hills and Ladbrokes plus now Fred Done) don’t like it.  ÂÂÂ
SIS, while losing 50 per cent of its coverage, has apparently indicated it will drop its charges by only 15 per cent  – Lydia at:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ … 577317.ece<br> <br>Turf TV on the other hand is apparently pricing at roughly 31/59ths of what SIS charged for all 59 courses: £6,500 compared to £12,800 – Greg Wood at:
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/horseracing … 51,00.html
However, Turf TV’s big problem is that it won’t have any exclusivity for anything from its courses shown on terrestrial TV, ie all its crown jewels from Ascot, Aintree, Cheltenham, Epsom, Goodwood, Newmarket, York.
Basically, the 31 courses need the Big 3 to subscribe to Turf TV.  At least 2 of the Big 3 (I’m not sure where Coral stand) are trying to prove that they don’t need the  pictures and data from those 31 courses which don’t make it to terrestrial TV.
Due to early contract expiry, since April 1 issue has already been joined in the cases of  Ascot, Newbury, Chester, Goodwood, York and Bangor.
Turf TV courses:
Aintree<br>Ascot<br>Ayr<br>Bangor<br>Beverley<br>Carlisle<br>Cartmel<br>Catterick<br>Cheltenham<br>Chester<br>Epsom<br>Goodwood<br>Hamilton<br>Haydock<br>Huntingdon<br>Kempton<br>Ludlow<br>Market Rasen<br>Musselbrough<br>Newbury<br>Newmarket<br>Nottingham<br>Pontefract<br>Redcar<br>Salisbury<br>Sandown<br>Thirsk<br>Warwick<br>Wetherby<br>Wincanton<br>York
<br>best regards
wit
(Edited by wit at 5:25 am on April 27, 2007)
Thanks for the insightful replies .. I suppose it would be a good thing if someone could get into racing and break the strangle hold the Big3 have over the sport. It seems to me that Turf TV looks doomed to fail .. what will these courses do when bookie sponsored races don’t get sponsored and what will Turf TV do when the Big3 wait it out .. it seems an ill concieved idea to me.
Dave, I spent last Saturday afternoon on a pub-bookie jaunt. I was surprised to witness this first hand.
The bookie I frequented didn’t have commentary from Channel 4 either and broadcasted a series of "Off-Tube" commentaries from Newbury races, with SIS panjandrums commentating from the original TV coverage.
Listening to the excitable commentaries from an invisible Bangor transported me back twenty five years to the old Extel days. The average age of the punters betting on the horses was well over fifty so they would all remember this. They weren’t happy. We’ve all got used to seeing the fate of our wagers first hand rather than taking someone elses word for it.
Anyone under thirty was piling their wages into the Roulette machines, which, worryingly, is probably the real reason the Big Three won’t pay Turf TV’s asking price.
It’s all right everyone moaning about the nightmarish situation in which we find ourselves (and you’ve all convinced me that there IS a problem), but what do we do about it?
(Edited by Maxilon 5 at 9:51 am on April 27, 2007)
Max, i’m well under 30 and if the bookies dont have pictures i’d rather sit at home get a decent price on betfair and wait forthe result to come in or watch it on ATR/C4/BBC… Someone at the centre of all this needs to get this sorted, one racing channel, full time coverage, decent presenters, benefits to everyone..
I feel that Turf TV desperately needs to succeed for the good of the sport.
If it fails the Big 3 will run riot.:angry:
Colin
I’m afraid to say it, but it sounds as though Turf TV is destined to fail. Regardless of what Corals think, Hills & Ladbrokes alone wield enough money and influence to bring any fledgling rivalry to its knees.
Although, they’d have a hard time justifying the statement that ‘we don’t need non-terrestrial racing from all the major courses’. Having Wolves & Lingfield as your only televised racing would cause a riot amongst the small-time punter, but then when was the last time Hills & Lads cared about them?
Lets set a few facts straight, shall we??
Martin (Irish Stamp) – you’re wrong on at least two counts there. Firstly the lack of Newbury pictures on SIS had nothing to do with a dispute with TurfTV, they had everything to do with the fact that SIS no longer own the rights to broadcast pictures or data from that track (along with Ascot, Bangor, York, Chester & Goodwood).
Secondly, the bookies aren’t subscribing to ATR or RUK to transmit pictures from those tracks – they are subscribing to TurfTV (who is half owned by RUK). The only Non RUK track they have is Ascot.
(dealing with other random comments here)
Thirdly – as Wit says, the annual charge is £6500 per annum, compared to SIS’ charge of over £12000 per annum. However until January 1st the cost is £100 a month, taking into account that only the six tracks are involved until then.
Fourthly – as of January 1st, TurfTV retain exclusive rights to broadcast data and pictures (that includes the show prices) for 31 tracks; all the RUK tracks plus Ascot.
Fifthly (if the word exists – this is getting a long list!!!) – SIS are not "unofficially" returning data [ie shows] from the tracks; they are doing it after forming an agreement with TurfTV that they may still retain the rights to return such data until January 1st, after which they will not be able to do so and any bookmaker wishing to display show prices for the 31 tracks will need to subscribe to TurfTV.
Lastly [for now!!!] – it seems to have escaped many peoples notice that David Harding, CE for Hills, was quoted as saying in the RP last week :<br>
Harding added: "I can’t say that William Hill will not carry the Turf TV service, but we do not want the service and if we take it, with reluctance, we will want a cut in the levy
which isn’t the hard-line stance against TurfTV that they’ve been taking all along! They realise that at the end of the day they will have to subscribe to the service.
sixthly, all on-course bookmakers have a 5 year agreement with sis to supply them with prices at an arranged fee,there are 2 years to run, turf tv will have to negotiate with sis to use our prices.
I do believe the technical term with regards to that post is "[utter] b*llocks", Barry Dennis.
TurfTV own the rights to use & return the data from their tracks – it has the square root of bugger all to do with any agreements SIS have with on-course bookmakers. SIS hold no data or picture rights whatsoever after January 1st for those 31 tracks.
on-course bookmakers will not be supplying data to turf tv without an agreement, sis have recognised that sp’s formed from our prices are exclusively our data, at the moment sis have that right for a further 2 years, someone will be paying somebody.
So the fact that the racecourses involved have a direct interest in TurfTV means nothing?? Without the racecourses the bookmakers would have no pitches!!!
The on-course bookmakers will struggle to refuse to supply data to TurfTV – they cannot deny the data for the PA to use & it goes hand in hand with the rights TurfTV own to return that data. Any agreements SIS have with those bookmakers will be defunct by definition as SIS can do nothing with the data and the bookmakers won’t be able to refuse supplying the data to form shows and SPs.
(Edited by Shadow Leader at 10:44 pm on April 27, 2007)
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.