Racing UK to show a large amount of Irish racing online only?

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PDC
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Can anyone who has access to today's Racing Post or the members section of the website shed any light on the rumors that were on Twitter last night that there was going to be an article in today's racing post and online that from next year when Racing UK take over Irish racing coverage that they will only be showing a large amount of it via their online player and not the main TV channel.

This is the tweet that started it:

https://twitter.com/deniscoakley11/stat ... 4837338114
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Euler
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That would be a disaster. Not sure that Irish racing would have switched if they knew there would be little coverage.
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PDC
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I agree it would be a disaster from both a trading and sport point of view. Thankfully the article just seems to be speculation at the moment though on New Years Day I can't see how it can work as likely to need a 4 way split screen. The issue Irish Racing have is they sold the rights to sell the pictures to the home to SIS who don't necessarily have the sports best/long term interest as their priority but instead profits I would think.

It is a shame ATR have lost the rights as I would suspect a lot of people won't shell out for RUK so may leave the markets alone making them even quieter.

Hopefully will can still access the pictures via Betfair though the Live Video will need to change as at present we can only get the RUK feed and not the course specific feed like you do with ATR tracks.
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Derek27
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Euler wrote:
Thu Aug 30, 2018 2:37 pm
That would be a disaster. Not sure that Irish racing would have switched if they knew there would be little coverage.
You would think they would have signed a contract with full details of the coverage.
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Euler
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You would have thought so
spreadbetting
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The thing with Irish racing is they never wait for anyone with start times so you'd have clashes all over the place trying to broadcast each of them. I'd much rather they dumped the low grade Irish racing online than trying to cover both.
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ShaunWhite
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Why is online only such a big deal? Don't most people watch media streamed to a device and cast/mirror it to a tv anyway?

It provides a great opportunity for content enrichment and it might keep the cost down too as sat tv bandwidth doesn't come cheap. It would also help with clashing races as they could enable additional parallel streams on an ad hoc basis. Possibly faster pictures?

That Richard Forristal article reads like a hack who needed to meet his column inches quota. 'Project Fear' as I believe all forms of concern are called now. He even says the issue is cramming all the action onto one tv channel, illustrating that the whole single channel 'tv show' concept is out moded, yet he doesn't see or most likely doesn't understand, benefit of having mutiple streams. Racing is stuck in the past, bring on the future.
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PDC
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ShaunWhite wrote:
Thu Aug 30, 2018 3:45 pm
Why is online only such a big deal? Don't most people watch media streamed to a device and cast/mirror it to a tv anyway?
Although the media often makes it sound like that is how most people consume TV these days, it is not, there were figures released just the other week on TV viewing habits. I seem to also remember figures suggesting that Horse Racing viewers were less inclined than 'normal' viewers to embrace online viewing.

The harder you make it to access content the less people will participate. ATR comes as a 'free' channel with all Sky and Virgin packages I believe to millions of subscribers. RUK is a stand alone subscription service on top of Sky or Virgin. The online version is not bundled with the TV subscription for Virgin customers I think. The total number of RUK subscribers is around 50,000, this is against the large number of customers who have access on Sky & Virgin.

The online version of RUK is delayed quite considerably I believe which will kill inrunning for those who need access to pictures and will also pose problems for Pre-Race traders for example when a horse is playing up.

The fact that there will be other racing on RUK Tv channel at the same time is likely I would think lead to people' forgetting' about the irish racing on the online only channel unless they have a specific reason to seek out a race. This will mean less trading volumes more than likely.

Then there is the issue of poor broadband speed coverage in both the UK and Ireland.

From a promotional point of view from the irish racing industry it will be playing second fiddle to UK racing and I feel will have long term damaging effects as has been the case with many other sports that have chased tv rights at the expense of everything else.
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ShaunWhite
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PDC wrote:
Thu Aug 30, 2018 4:44 pm
ShaunWhite wrote:
Thu Aug 30, 2018 3:45 pm
Why is online only such a big deal? Don't most people watch media streamed to a device and cast/mirror it to a tv anyway?
Although the media often makes it sound like that is how most people consume TV these days, it is not, there were figures released just the other week on TV viewing habits. I seem to also remember figures suggesting that Horse Racing viewers were less inclined than 'normal' viewers to embrace online viewing.

The harder you make it to access content the less people will participate. ATR comes as a 'free' channel with all Sky and Virgin packages I believe to millions of subscribers. RUK is a stand alone subscription service on top of Sky or Virgin.
I do get your point. The bottom line is that whatever we think, they'll do what they want to do. We can't change what's happening so rather than bemoan a loss, I was just trying to find some upsides.

The point about how tv is consumed is valid, but as more and more choice over delivery is taken away that migration is inevitable, much as it was when people reluctantly moved from terrestrial tv or fm radio. Technology in transition is always a bit painful, but usually worth that pain in the end.

The licence operators aren't mugs, they'll have similar concerns and no doubt, a plan. But there's plenty who say there's too much racing, so if this starts a bit of a cull then maybe that's good too?

Std conclusion, it's got pros and cons. But I'm not sure it's so bad that it's worth reaching for the blood pressure tablets or the 'disaster' that some people think it is. Taxable income would be a 'disaster', this is just an evolution. ;)
invisiblelayer
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What a mess if they go online only but its all speculation, in an ideal world for me they'd do away with all build ups and pundits and bookie rep crap, just show the parade ring and racing, don't mind split screens when required. Maybe some tracks will shift to sky racing eventually like Ascot, and I think Chester and Bangor are moving also?
stueytrader
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If it does happen Irish racing will look like the current state that US racing is on Betfair....in other words you'll have to look at which of the horses have any money traded on them, with 20 mins to the offtime.... :(
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ShaunWhite
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stueytrader wrote:
Fri Aug 31, 2018 11:39 am
If it does happen Irish racing will look like the current state that US racing is on Betfair....in other words you'll have to look at which of the horses have any money traded on them, with 20 mins to the offtime.... :(
I can't imagine any situation were the Irish won't be putting their money down somehow.

Remember we didn't even get telly in the bookies until 1986, maybe people have forgotten what it was like when we all had to go to the bookies to listen to a race on the radio. This is amazing compared to that, it'll be just fine.
invisiblelayer
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If they do go online only people will still find a way to watch on TV. Most IPTV providers have bookie sections with SiS, Hills, Paddy Power etc all showing racing.
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PDC
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An article with some more details on the changes to RUK and ATR:

https://www.racingpost.com/sport/sport- ... hop/355467
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