Qipco blames C4 for declining viewing figures

Interesting article in the RP online today which David Redvers gives his thoughts on the declining figures in racing. Here is the link to have a goosey gander for yourselves...

https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&sour...IIGjAA&usg=AFQjCNHRG14Fp0B-oYxVlI7vgm8nWIyr6Q

 

I blame Cunningham

 

Is he the brother of Slybacon?

 

Getting rid of John McCririck was where it all went wrong for Channel 4

But in all seriousness racing on the BBC will always get more viewers, as the BBC in general get double the audience that channel 4 do. Even if you put something very popular like World Cup football on channel 4, they'd always get less viewers than if the BBC had it. I don't think it has anything to do with the coverage being any better or worse on either station, it's just your casual TV watcher will more likely watch BBC than they will channel 4. I'd be fairly certain that if you switched racing back to the BBC and even had the exact same broadcasting team that channel 4 do, the viewing figures would go back up.

Either way I wouldn't watch racing on either channel, as there is to much rubbish that I have zero interest in listening to.

Racing UK isn't perfect, but it's by far the best broadcaster for racing, as the coverage is actually aimed at serious punters, not the casual fan, so i always watch that rather than anything on channel 4.

I'm not a fan of ATR either, I think the whole coverage is shoddy, and I'm actually put off when it comes to taking an interest in meetings that they are covering. I'd much rather RUK had the lot. Atleast they generally have all the big meetings here in the UK though. Now ATR has lost Ascot, they don't have a lot left. Windsors probably about the best for them

 

I think they made a mistake in the re-package and have never recovered. When Francombe, Down and Mcgrath were running the show you felt like you were watching people who could be your mates and saw racing as you did. Now they have presenters who may have a little more TV polish but lack charisma and humour, just how many laughs do you get from Nick Luck, Rishi and Tanya? The chemistry worked before, especially from Francombe and McGrath but the new ones have little chemistry. The other thing is they need decide if they are making a programme for racing fans who know what they are watching or just TV viewers and I think it must always be the former.

 

Redvers is a bit of a knob,as he showed on the leger incident and his storming of the House Of Commons...de facto criminal in that respect..

Perhaps DR has a point about the C4 bulletin...I don't watch racing coverage except on my laptop or the "Professional channels" and only the actual race..rarely with commentary tbh as well..we all know our colours and can race read as well as any caller.

RUK has some positives but that northern bullfrog O'Ryan is ****ing mindnumbing..shocking.

Gary O'Brien on ATR is a sublime broadcaster and has stepped in to give some very good calls on "sound outs".

He tips well and has the ear and respect of all the top trainers and jocks who never fail to oblige him.

Matt C isn't everyones cup of tea but he tries to expose non triers and doesn't give everyone a get out of jail free card on the non triers.

Mick Fitz is a complete ****ing moron..no more no less in case I have done him down.

There are two things you could set your watch to at Cheltenham..Tom Scu Riding a finish from the top of the hill and the awful Simon Whatshisname wetting himself and squealing like a teenage girl in every race..mute thanks.

Racing is niche,always will be,and will survive without the sporadic patronisation of once a year people...it will abide,always has done.

What we can't do is alienate the initiated for the mildly might one day be interested if the notion takes me.

Re Redvers,we could do a cameo on how the stable lads of his employers are enslaved in Qatar before export.

Just a thought...the yawning might yield something more interesting...if that's what he wants of course.

 

Cun*****am is the problem- despicable smug p***k of a human being - throw in my ol mate Mick the t**t Fitzgerald with the worst Irish accent on Tv who just bigs up Nicky the needles horses on channel 4 - full of phoney sh**s

 

Get rid of the pompous snivelling Nick Suck sorry Nick luck - and Rishi - about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike - hendersons bum boy Fitzy - cun****ham - and get the old team back !!

 

The numbers will continue to fall if coverage is chiefly aimed at the converted. Sure the average punters who pour billions into the industry need looking after, they deserve better than they are receiving at the moment, but if tv numbers are to grow, new eyeballs have to dragged to the screen. Racing on it's own can't do this. Like it or not, to the general public, racing's perceived, entertainment value is much akin to crap on a stick. To them it's mind numbingly boring. It's tedium in trumps. They prefer second rate singers and dancers strutting their stuff before a panel of no talented, ****tards, who constantly praise the endless drivel paraded before them as the next global super stars. **** me, what twaddle. And people suck up this flapdoodle like it going out of fashion. Maybe going back to the BBC can slightly increase the viewers, but even there, I expect that in time, numbers will continue to fall. It has to, there are far too many other, and some would say, more attractive gambling outlets available these days. People today want action now, not every 30 minutes. Sure football is an hour and a half of sport, but it has a much wider profile that racing...even women like it. Go to a football game and you'll see lots of women, go to a betting shop and they are few and far between.

We need more feeble minded young men of an addictive nature to get themselves interested in the sport of kings. That's where the future lies. And to do this, we need to think outside the box. There is a definate need of bare breasted women doing lewd interviews in the mountain yard. And what of cameras in the jockey's rooms where all the real action takes place? Race rigging chats, punch ups, whispered conversations about "hot" whips and the endless parade of half starved, skeletal athletes wrapped in towels, might go a long way towards lifting the flagging profile of the sport. The obsessed are already here, we no longer need to cater to them. Shut down the television coverage and they'll break out their radios. Pathetic bastards. No, I'm afraid that if we want to corrupt more of our youth, we'll need to take the horse out of the front line of the battle. We need a more clandestine approach when it comes to luring the unsuspecting, but gullible victim into the bowels of racing. Once we've instilled a craving in him/her, once the enslavement is complete, then and only then can we feel that our work is done. I don't quite know how this contrivance can be manipulated, I can only offer up what I hope is a possible way forward. Greater minds than mine will have to step into the rumble and take up the onerous load. Good luck my friends, the best wishes of your friends from across the seas will be with you in the dark days ahead. Into the fray it is then my hearties.

Slave! I have set my life upon a cast, and I will stand the hazard of the die.

 

Lets get racing back to the 80's-90's NO INTERNET, NO LAYING, FIX PRICES TIL 1015 get those machines out the bookies along with the trouble they attract get Mccirrick, Downs and Francombe back on. Emma and Tanya can go and Jeana can stay! Sorted

 

Get racing back on the main channel, the ITV Seven followed by Giant Haystacks and Mick McManus!

 

stick

 

From the C4 team I don't mind Nick Luck at all, think he's a good listen to be fair. Articulate, knowledgeable and passionate. Gina's not bad, but the rest of them are a total waste of oxygen...

 

Bring back Jim Mcgraths commentary absolute legend and his commentary on Frankels last win- fantastic

 

I know that we all have our favourite likes and dislikes amongst the presenter crew for Channel 4 racing but I do not think that is entirely the problem. The likes of John Francome left when Channel 4 changed the production company and some of the ‘new’ crew like Rishi ‘Listen’ Persad do not bring anything to the game that interests us but we are not the ‘new audience’ that the sport needs.

Reading Mr Redvers list of complaints, it does not appear that he has much of a grasp on how horseracing and betting are intertwined. Whether you liked or loathed the politically incorrect McCririck, he was a dominant character and people did watch. ‘The Female’ Tanya is very nice but she does get quite prosaic at times.

Myself, I tend to just watch the races and mute the between-race waffle and adverts. Channel 4 could try getting the production crew to show the runners and riders for each race and move on to the next page when the presenter reading them has actually finished the ones that are on screen rather than the current fiasco where they have to speed read them before it automatically changes.

I would prefer if Channel 4 would actually show the runners going to post when they do their comments rather than the recorded runners walking around the parade ring. As a punter I would like to see the beast that is probably about to lose me some money going through the motions.

If ITV is intending to bid for TV rights for horseracing, presumably it would be shown on ITV2 or ITV4 except on a Saturday afternoon. Would that actually draw more of an audience than Channel 4?

 

I always think that the attendance figures are a nice bit of hogwash. Look how many race meetings there are in a season and how many of the people that go to racing more than once a year. It is just counting the same people over and over. If you live somewhere where there are four or five racetracks within thirty miles, you get counted twenty times even though there is only one of you. Only us real horseracing addicts travel hundreds of miles to go to the top fixtures.

 

I avoid the "big meetings" (aside from days 1&2 of the festival) and,in my continued exile,discovered Downpatrick...tiny little track with an uphill finishing gradient that is almost cruel.

Proper racing folk and a track that dates back to 1685.

 

Great wee course Downpatrick, been a few summer jump meetings there. That's a proper uphill finish there, Cheltenham looks a dawdle in comparison!