A peak audience of more than one million people tuned in for the opening three days of Royal Ascot, but the overall viewing figures suffered last week in competition with international football, according to ITV Racing.
The coverage was split between ITV1 and ITV4 due to clashes with the broadcaster’s European Championships programing.
ITV showed a number of matches throughout the week, including Croatia vs. Albania at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, while the BBC’s coverage of England vs. Denmark also impacted audience share.
“Overall we’re very happy,” said ITV Racing’s racing editor, Paul Cooper. “We got a peak viewership of more than one million on the first three days. The magic million is our benchmark for Royal Ascot and to hit that on days two and three—which sometimes don’t always get up to that figure—was very pleasing.
“We can’t get away from it. There’s a clash with the football, which switches us to ITV4 when it’s being shown on ITV, while we also clashed with the BBC’s coverage. We have to accept European and World Cup football will always drive huge figures, which does compromise us when we move to ITV4.”
The viewership on the main channel were said to have held up well throughout the week. A peak audience of 1.03 million tuned in to the opening day on ITV1, with an average audience of 740,000, marginally down from 1.09 million and 845,000 last year.
A peak audience of 1.22 million Wednesday and 1.06 million Thursday represented improvements on last season, but the numbers Friday and Saturday were down, with a peak audience of 825,000 Friday (down from 1.07 million) and 740,000 on the final day (down from 1.25 million).
Cooper said the variety of winners last week had helped to generate interest. He nominated 18-year-old jockey Billy Loughnane’s recording his first Royal Ascot winner in the Coventry Stakes (G2) Tuesday, after which his parents gave an emotional interview in the winner’s enclosure, as a highlight, as well as Colin Keane riding a winner for his father, Gerard, in the Duke of Edinburgh Friday.
However, the standout moment for Cooper was Isle of Jura landing Saturday’s Hardwicke Stakes (G2), and he said: “Callum Shepherd’s reaction afterwards was sensational. I haven’t met anybody who didn’t think he was hard done by losing the ride in the Derby and there seemed to be a real warmth from everybody when he won that race. His story of bouncing back applies in any walk of life and it’s easy for us to explain to the audience. Most people can relate to that.”
As well as flagging Luke Harvey “ambushing the party tent in the Windsor enclosure” and dancing with racegoers as an off-track highlight, Cooper spoke about what he described as a buoyant atmosphere last week.
“You can’t underestimate that in television terms,” he added. “When the sun shines, everything just looks better. When you’re trying to get reaction after a race, it can be a nightmare when it’s raining and nobody wants to talk.”
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