At The Races chief executive Matthew Imi quits after 19 years at the helm

Matthew Imi is leaving his post as chief executive of At The Races after 19 years at the head of the organisation responsible for the At The Races TV channel and then Sky Sports Racing. 

Kevin Robertson has been announced as interim chief executive. A former chief financial officer of the company, he was more recently a non-executive director on the board. 

Imi has been heavily involved in media rights issues, notably securing his channel's coverage of racing at Ascot, Chester and Bangor in 2019, with Newbury set to to follow at the start of 2024. Tracks such as Fakenham, Leicester, Stratford and Taunton all made a move in the opposite direction to join Racing TV.

The 56-year-old was also chief executive when the channel acquired the rights to show French racing after coverage of Ireland's 27 tracks moved to the rival channel.

More recently, Imi said plans to ban bookmaker advertising in Ireland contained in the government's Gambling Regulation Bill might "render Sky Sports Racing economically unviable in Ireland". He had also been involved in talks with Netflix over plans for a horseracing docuseries.

Before At The Races, Imi worked at BBC Worldwide and then BBC Worldwide Americas from 1990 to 1997, before serving as head of Sky Ventures at BSkyB up until 2004.

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