Critics of ITV's Derby coverage need to step back and see the bigger picture

Here's the Investec Derby fallout in a nutshell: we probably didn’t get a legendary winner, fewer people attended on Saturday than used to be the case, you’ve got to admire Aidan O’Brien, ITV’s coverage needs to reference sectionals and the channel’s chief presenter is exasperated at critics of the show.

I think that was roughly it. The first point needs to be put on hold until October, which is always the point at which, with the Epsom runners having had a few more chances to let us know what they’ve got, we can say whether it was a vintage Derby, a poor one or something in between.

The crowds on the Downs are not as massive as they used to be but that’s nothing we didn’t know, and the non-racing people I know who went had a fun day, so we should probably avoid panicking about this matter.

O’Brien continues to take his astonishing career into an ever more bewildering stratosphere, and it will be fascinating to see just what his career numbers look like when he finally packs it in.

All pretty clear-cut so far, but now let’s look at ITV, its coverage and its critics. Not so easily summarised.

The channel received criticism from former trainer Charlie Brooks for lacking ambition and substance and more specifically for not providing viewers with sectional timing information.

Meanwhile ITV Racing host Ed Chamberlin expressed his frustration at the social media reaction to the Derby show, particularly the antipathy towards the fashion segments.

Let’s tackle that issue first. Fashion has been covered at the highest-profile Flat meetings long before ITV got its hands on the rights, most entertainingly in my view when the BBC employed a po-faced expert called James Sherwood to assess racegoers’ clobber.

These days every single garment worn by anyone who features in a fashion segment is gorgeous, beautiful and suits the person perfectly. Occasionally Sherwood would be equally generous in his praise of someone’s get-up but there were plenty of other times when he would not hold back in his criticism of their choice of outfit. It was properly good television.

These days things are more sugary when it comes to fashion but it remains a popular part of the output and anyone who says there is no room for it on a racing programme simply doesn’t understand what ITV is trying to achieve.

All I would say is if they could flag up at the start of each show exactly when the slots were going to appear it would benefit everyone.

Similarly, to lambast the broadcaster because a small part of its shows are devoted to the Social Stable, in which Love Island star Chris Hughes and a member of the regular team offer a lighter touch to proceedings and attempt to drum up viewer involvement, is to spectacularly miss the point that ITV is trying to grow its audience.

My only observation about the Social Stable is that the impressive Hughes is now easily capable of driving these slots himself, possibly with the help of another person who will resonate with the Instagram generation.

It was interesting that my daughter asked me to back Hughes’s Oaks and Derby tips when she would never do likewise if a more established expert was putting up a selection, which suggests this less traditional type of racing broadcasting actually boosts engagement, which is to the benefit of everyone in racing.

It is to Chamberlin’s credit that he cares enough to address ITV Racing’s critics and hopefully by stressing the need to expand the audience he will win over some of the more blinkered viewers who expect to see simply a more lavish version of Racing TV or Sky Sports Racing.

The misguided negativity towards ITV’s output was expertly summed up by Racing Post Surf & Turf columnist Robin Gibson, who said this week: “I’m continually appalled, over the decades now I guess, by the crummy bitching from people about TV coverage of racing. What do they want? It’s a mainstream broadcaster punting the sport for hours and hours. They have to make it entertaining.”

Perfectly correct, and by entertaining that means doing things a bit differently, creating glamour and showbiz around a sport that, if you just want bread and butter, is expertly served by two dedicated channels.

Which is exactly where sectional timing belongs, not on ITV. I am a big Charlie Brooks fan. He has an enviably carefree demeanour, epitomises the attitude that you are only here once, and thinks and acts originally and boldly.

But his column in Monday’s Daily Telegraph hit the corner flag rather than the back of the net where his points about sectionals were concerned.

With accompanying data, Brooks highlighted that runner-up Madhmoon decelerated in the final furlong whereas winner Anthony Van Dyck maintained a consistent pace in the final two furlongs as opposed to actually quickening up, and said ITV was missing a trick not furnishing viewers with these facts.

Well, yes, there is a fundamental element of surprise when you learn that horses rarely quicken up at the end of races as opposed to just slowing down a bit less drastically than their rivals, but that is a lesson most people need only once and after it has been absorbed you are then into the nitty gritty of what the sectionals tell you.

And the majority of the time the answer to that is going to be not very much, certainly not enough to get ITV to swap fashion’s Charlotte Hawkins for sectional timing’s Simon Rowlands, as has been suggested on various occasions.

There is certainly a place for Rowlands in racing’s world. As the main evangelist for the virtues of sectionals he has built a loyal niche audience, and he worked with admirable zeal to make life better and fairer for punters as the inaugural chair of the Horseracing Bettors Forum.

But if you wanted to find a type of content to sail over the head of as many ITV viewers as possible and get them reaching for the remote, a clinical presentation of sectional analysis would probably be it.

It is a bone dry topic that has yet to win over most of the mainstream racing media that it is worth bothering with so it would be laughable to try to push it to ITV’s more casual audience.

The bigger question regarding sectionals is if and when they will ever become a part of the sport’s core data suite or will instead continue to exist as this kind of peripheral factor to weave into the winner-finding process.

My view has remained fairly consistent. It sounds nice to be able to have seconds-per-furlong figures at your disposal but that the fact nobody has yet made the necessary investment to produce these definitive figures for all British courses shows the value of the information is questionable.

The bottom line is that in order to devote the money to create sectionals there has to be a clear indication that it would benefit the sport in terms of boosting turnover, both by making existing punters bet more and by attracting new people into the funnel.

Until such time as someone spells out loud and clear why sectionals are useful and how they can be applied to make identifying winners easier - and such a piece has never been properly written - I don’t believe existing racing punters will bet more and I am absolutely certain not a single person is suddenly going to start backing horses because they can see how fast each runner has historically covered each furlong.

A better ambition would be to present existing data in a way that will appeal to a new generation of punters, but that will rely more on clever use of symbols, colours and user experiences than by smearing even more numbers across a card.

As things stand, the sport is brilliantly served on television. ITV does a marvellous job, while those who want something less glitzy can feast on the more earnest Racing TV and the spicier but still perfectly sensible Sky Sports Racing.

Terrestrial TV coverage is something to cherish and value rather than lampoon because if there is ever a day when mainstream broadcasters have neither the desire nor the budget to screen racing the consequences for everyone in the sport will hit extremely hard.

Today's top sports betting stories

Follow us on Twitter @racingpostsport

Like us on Facebook RacingPostSport