ITV hails Cheltenham audience figures and urges the sport to recognise how popular the festival is with viewers

A quarter of the entire British television audience on Friday afternoon was tuned in to ITV to watch Galopin Des Champs successfully defend his crown in the Boodles Gold Cup. 

Overall the network recorded a strong performance over the four days of the Cheltenham Festival with an average audience share which rose steadily through the week from 15.6 per cent across Tuesday's programme to 19 per cent on Friday, the second-highest in the last eight years. 

In terms of the actual number of people watching, the average across the week was 953,000, up from the 2023 average of 941,000, although the Gold Cup's 25 per cent share translated into a peak of 1.59m viewers, marginally down on 1.68m in 2023.

ITV Racing editor Richard Willoughby said that, in today's fragmented media landscape, the channel's share of the television audience was the most important metric. And Willoughby offered an optimistic rejoinder to some of the gloomier verdicts on this year's festival, arguing that it still resonates with ITV's broad sporting and daytime audience. 

"The figures are a reflection of how people’s viewing habits have changed," said Willoughby. "The younger generation are moving away from sitting in front of a television and of course during the Covid years our numbers were inflated. 

"The share is the most important number to focus on because that’s the available audience watching TV at that time. To get a quarter of that audience watching the Gold Cup is fantastic."

Willoughby added: "We at ITV are preaching to a broader church and, while this week there has been a lot of grumblings and discussion about the current state of the Cheltenham Festival from within the sport, what the numbers tell you is that, from an ITV audience perspective, they love what they see. 

"They love the spectacle of the Cheltenham Festival and they love what it represents in comparison to other sport and other events. 

"Racing shouldn’t be too down on itself and too down on the festival. General sports fans still regard it as an amazing thing and an event with a lot of gravitas, a lot of clout. These viewing figures back that up."

Wednesday's peak, average and share all held up well, despite the loss of the Cross Country Chase to waterlogging, a turn of events which meant ITV could only show four rather than its normal five races in a schedule with a later start time for the opening Gallagher Novices' Hurdle, and longer gaps between the subsequent races.

"It’s frustrating that, as a sport, there’s no flexibility around bringing a fifth race into our coverage," said Willoughby. "I get it from a sponsor perspective, but it would be so much better to have something in place to switch the races around. 

"Maybe you could sell the time slot to a sponsor rather than a race. In an ideal world we would have brought in another race and that would have been sponsored by [cross-country chase sponsors] Glenfarclas. It’s not an ideal solution but it would have given us five terrestrial races."

Willoughby highlighted the decision to send roving reporter Rishi Persad to interview Lucinda Russell about Corach Rambler's fine third in the Gold Cup as evidence that the coverage would head to the Randox Grand National meeting in confident mood.

ITV Racing's Alice Plunkett interviews Harry Skelton after Protektorat's win in the Ryanair ChaseCredit: GROSSICK RACING

"Aintree is just around the corner and what was Cheltenham’s loss might yet be Aintree’s gain in terms of the Nicky Henderson horses," said Willoughby. "People will be willing those Henderson horses to make a massive splash up there.

"We sent Rishi straight to talk to Lucinda after the Gold Cup, with Corach Rambler running so well as a pointer to the National. The Skelton team having a great week is another positive and going into Aintree we have all these fantastic stories and really good momentum from the whole jumps season."

Read more here:

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'We're not being complacent' insists Jockey Club chief after total Cheltenham Festival attendance drops by 11,000 

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