With better opportunity comes greater expectation, so Channel 4 will be anxious to deliver an increased audience for next year’s Grand National, when the famous race is staged later than 5pm for what is probably the first time ever and certainly in the era of live TV coverage. The decision to delay it by an hour to 5.15pm is undoubtedly the right one, if the only consideration is to increase the viewing audience, but no one is taking it for granted that the number will actually grow.
That is the consequence of some disappointing figures recorded by Channel 4 Racing since acquiring sole terrestrial rights to horse racing at the start of 2013. This year’s Derby was a notable low point, the peak audience of 1.47m being less than half of those who watched on the BBC three years earlier. With renewal of the rights from 2017 now under discussion, this is an interesting time in the relationship between racing and Channel 4, with both sides trying to decide what they think of each other.
Whatever else might be said on that subject, the Grand National has so far been a continued success since leaving the BBC. Despite fears the broader public might be baffled by the race’s first change of channel in more than half a century, it has been seen by 8.4m, 8.5m and 8.8m over the past three years, a pleasing if gradual upward trend.
The BBC scored 10.9m in 2012, the corporation’s final year at Aintree, and there are those who use that number as a stick with which to beat Channel 4. It is by no means a fair-minded approach, since the BBC’s peak was below 8m in both 2007 and 2010, which delivered one of the strongest stories when Tony McCoy finally won the race.
The Jockey Club powerbrokers behind Tuesday’s news will surely have in mind that the Grand National of 1997 was seen by 15.1m. That was the year when a bomb scare resulted in the race being delayed from the Saturday to the following Monday, when it was run at 5pm, more than an hour later than was usual at the time.
Undoubtedly, that year’s audience was boosted by the fact that the race had rocketed up the news agenda in the previous two days. There was a mood of defiance that meant taking an interest in that National was, for some, a way of standing up to the threat of terrorism.
Still, there is much to be said for running your most high-profile event when the biggest audience can watch. The briefing from insiders on Tuesday was that, at 5.15pm on a Saturday, the race will be available to huge numbers of football and rugby fans who can listen on the car radio or watch at home after reviewing the final scores. Pubs across the country will be able to switch over for the National without provoking the ire of supporters around the bar.
“We see it as the People’s Race” was one view expressed. “As custodians, we feel a responsibility to do the right things, carefully researched and considered, to take the sport to more people and give them the opportunity to enjoy it.”
All very sober and sensible, though it rather leads to the question of why this has not been done before now.
That was one question for which John Baker, the Jockey Club’s manager at Aintree, did not have an answer as he discussed the news with reporters, but he can hardly be accused of dragging his feet, having had the job for only a shade over two years.
In the past, the need to keep Sunday newspapers onside may have been a significant factor. While the new start time will be less than an hour before first editions are printed, that appears not to have been seen as any kind of obstacle to this change, thanks to the increasing importance of online journalism.
There will be a natural suspicion that, at least in this instance, racing has put the needs of its TV audience over those of its spectators. Getting away from the Grand National has sometimes felt like taking part in it, only with a greater need for stamina and against a field of 70,000 rather than the mere 40 that line up on the track. A later start time will make it so much more of a challenge for anyone trying to return to London or Ireland that night, while it is just possible that some of those present will have taken on board still more alcohol by the time of the race than they managed in the past.
But recent Grand Nationals have sold out and there has been no sign that any of the attendant discomforts have made the day less attractive, giving officials the confidence to try something like this. One of the parties to the decision has been briefing that the start time could revert to 4.15pm for the 2017 race if need be.
But it will be a big surprise if this initiative is a faller at the first fence. The public will get a chance to show they are still gripped by a unique sporting spectacle and they are surely odds-on to tune in.
