Channel 4 has added the All-Weather Championships Finals Day at Lingfield Park to its live horse racing schedule for the first time in 2015.
With £1million in prize-money up for grabs, the richest all-weather raceday in Europe, and having received widespread praise for the inaugural staging earlier this year, horse racing’s exclusive terrestrial broadcaster has confirmed that it screen coverage of this lucrative meeting on its 2015 schedules.
Next year’s Finals Day meeting will be held on April 3, with Good Friday falling two weeks earlier than in 2014, and the build-up to it all starts in October, marking the start of over 200 fixtures at Kempton, Lingfield, Southwell and Wolverhampton.
Channel 4 Racing viewers will be able to watch selected key races as the build-up to finals day begins in the autumn, while Finals Day itself will be covered in a special three-hour live broadcast direct from Lingfield.
The All-Weather Championships proved a great success in their first year and the additional exposure offered by Channel 4 should lead to even more people being able to enjoying a day of top class racing.
The series aims to improve the quality and reputation of all-weather racing and encourage owners and trainers alike to keep their horses in training during the winter months to compete in one of the 6 categories, designed to test every horse, jockey and trainer in the UK.
All-weather racing dominates about a fifth of the British fixture list and top trainers, leading owners and the best jockeys have supported this type of racing since its inception over two decades ago.
In addition to Channel 4’s coverage, dedicated horse racing channel At The Races will also carry live action of the All-Weather Championships Finals Day on Good Friday next year.
Jamie Aitchison, Channel 4’s Commissioning Editor for Sport, said: “After the success of last year’s launch, we are delighted to bring the 2015 All-Weather Championships Finals Day for the first time to terrestrial viewers.
Tony Kelly, managing director of Arena Racing Company (ARC), owners of Lingfield Park, added: “ARC and Channel 4 enjoy working together to help showcase British Racing. The ARC team is absolutely delighted Channel 4 will be showing the All-Weather Championships £1 million Finals Day next year.
“After only their first year the All-Weather Championships are already making a positive impact on raising the profile and prestige of all-weather racing in Great Britain.
“We would particularly like to thank our sponsors who showed belief in the initiative from the outset.
“We are eager to get started on Year Two and look forward to both Channel 4 and At The Races continuing to do a fantastic job of showcasing racing across ARC’s racecourses as we seek to promote and grow British Racing in the years ahead.”
Andrew Perkins, Lingfield Park’s Managing Director, said: “The first year of the All-Weather Championships saw a crowd of nearly 9,000 pack out Lingfield Park.
“We enjoyed wonderful spring time weather this year which as we know in Great Britain cannot be depended upon but with top class racing and lots of other attractions for racegoers of all ages the team at Lingfield Park are already looking forward to a wonderful 2015 All-Weather Championships Finals Day.”
David Williams, Ladbrokes’ Head of Consumer PR, said: “We said at the outset that the All-Weather Championships Finals Day should be on terrestrial television and that we believe this will have a positive impact on betting turnover.
“As sponsors, we are really pleased ARC and Channel 4 have made this happen and we are looking forward to getting stuck into Year Two of the competition.”
Simon Clare, Coral’s PR Director, said: “The first year of the All-Weather Championships was without doubt a resounding success and I am therefore not in the least surprised that Channel 4 have signed up to cover next year’s Good Friday All-Weather Championships Finals day.
“Coral became enthusiastic supporters of this exciting new initiative from the moment that we were first briefed about it last summer, and we are looking forward immensely to building on the incredible success of Year One.”
Channel 4, which has been horse racing’s sole terrestrial partner since the beginning of 2013, will confirmed its final broadcast schedule for 2015, the third year of its current four-year deal for exclusive free-to-air rights, in due course.
The broadcaster currently holds live rights to all of horse racing’s biggest meetings, including the Grand National, Cheltenham Festival, Royal Ascot and Epsom Derby.
Despite its IMG-produced racing programming coming under firm scrutiny from those within the industry since re-launching in January 2013, to coincide with the arrival of racing’s crown jewels, Channel 4’s coverage of the recent Doncaster St Leger attracted a healthy peak audience of 763,000, a peak share of 8.9%.
The whole two and a half hour broadcast averaged 517,000 viewers with a 6.4% share, up on 2013, with a 5% increase on volume and a 10% increase in share against the five-year average for this long-standing Saturday fixture.
Doncaster’s St Leger Day coverage provided Channel 4 with their 16th consecutive Saturday since the Grand National meeting in which Channel 4 Racing viewership has been higher when compared with the same period in 2013, within a 21 week period.
For more information about Channel 4 Racing, visit channel4.com/racing.
.
.
