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Solution to falling viewing figures lies with racing itself

ITV viewing figures have fallen against Channel 4 Racing, but the problem does not lie with the TV channel, says Andrew Franklin
Racing relies on ITV as the shop window from which to showcase the best of the actionCredit: Edward Whitaker

So the Grand National viewing figure suffered a big fall despite its switch to commercial television’s most popular channel.

This has been attributed to the fine weather. Yet when Many Clouds won on Channel 4 under blue skies in 2015, and at an off-time one hour earlier, the audience was still greater than this year.

As Lee Mottershead indicated on Thursday in his review of ITV’s first quarter, the numbers watching racing on mainstream television are at an

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Martin Smethurst

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