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2 hours ago, PirateShip said:

How can that be so when Eurosport needs a paid subscription to watch and ITV is a free channel. 

The BBC's global reach increased by 11% year on year in 2020 to 468.2m people a week - the highest number ever. BBC News accounts for 438.4m of the total with an annual increase of 13%. Digital platforms are key to the success, with an increase of 53% in BBC News users.

59% ITV reaches 35.9m Individuals a week, that's 59% of TV viewers. 899 ITV showed 899 of the top 1000 commercial audiences in 2020.

Eurosport had 157 million subscribers for the year 2019, marking no increase from the previous year. The Eurosport 2 channel had an audience of 87 million viewers in 2019, an increase in size of one million.

 

Eurosport comes free on some packages including digi boxes etc. The APP or Eurosport IPlayer whatever you want to call it you have to pay for it yes but the overall reach for Eurosport is huge especially not they are part of the discovery network 

 

If you are looking to ITV for example then the only way they would ever show it would be ITV4 not their main channel

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At least at the end of their last televised meeting, Kelvin, Sam and the female presenter not only mentioned the Championship but also showed the Championship table.  Kelvin made the point that many of the Prem riders that they see on Eurosport can also be seen at Championship meetings.

So maybe, just maybe we might yet see some Championship racing before the season ends?!

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Long story short the chances of my employers ITV showing speedway anytime soon or frankly in the future are somewhere around zero. Resources are a lot tighter than they used to be and the truth is production costs make it unviable for the commercial returns it would generate.

Speaking as a fan of 40 years plus the simple fact that we've all had to come to terms with, is speedway is now firmly looked on as a minority sport. When I read Backtrack Classic Speedway etc see the big crowds and know the way ITV used to cover speedway nationally and regionally with full OB's it breaks my heart that apart from sporadic coverage on the regional news the interest is no longer there. 

But that's the way it is and it isn't going to change.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Skidder1 said:

At least at the end of their last televised meeting, Kelvin, Sam and the female presenter not only mentioned the Championship but also showed the Championship table.  Kelvin made the point that many of the Prem riders that they see on Eurosport can also be seen at Championship meetings.

So maybe, just maybe we might yet see some Championship racing before the season ends?!

Hope so.  More teams, more choice, virtually the same riders, something different.  I recall a few years ago Sky 'took the plunge' and covered 2nd tier speedway & the racing/entertainment value was far superior.

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One thing I have noticed is that when Pearson and Tatum are split up they both become very professional in the commentary box.

Tatum did a meeting with Chris Louis and this was top class commentary.

I've heard Pearson on some of the Glasgow videos and with the local commentator they again are very professional. Also when Pearson covers the football or the darts again very professional.

But.....as soon as you put Pearson and Tatum together they become very childish, talking about things that are totally irrelevant or having childish jibes at each other. We know Tatum couldn't stand Pearson years back when Tatum was still riding and that resentment still exists in my opinion. At times you can feel the knife go in from both sides.

Still, I prefer Dave Goddard or Dave Rowe.

And during the live shows why don't they interact with fans via twitter, facebook, email etc etc like Dave Goddard does on Premier Sports and Freesports . So at least if they persist with Tatum and Pearson at least it will give them something else to talk about instead of airing their dirty nappies in public! :rofl:

:t:

 

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The Championship will not feature on Eurosports coverage of British Speedway, time to move on.

It is a few league meetings, the Play Offs and the British Final that is all that is in the contract.

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2 hours ago, Falcon1983 said:

The Championship will not feature on Eurosports coverage of British Speedway, time to move on.

It is a few league meetings, the Play Offs and the British Final that is all that is in the contract

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2 hours ago, Falcon1983 said:

The Championship will not feature on Eurosports coverage of British Speedway, time to move on.

It is a few league meetings, the Play Offs and the British Final that is all that is in the contract.

Same as BT Sports then?!

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2 hours ago, Falcon1983 said:

The Championship will not feature on Eurosports coverage of British Speedway, time to move on.

It is a few league meetings, the Play Offs and the British Final that is all that is in the contract.

Thought 18 meetings had been agreed. 

But no surprise if Eurosport has got fed up with the product because it did sound it had been mis-sold to them from wot the Eurosport chief said in the Star at the beginning of the season. 

Edited by PirateShip

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The season started late this year did it not? So could be the reason less meeting have been put on plus there were more teams when the deal was agreed so already there are less fixtures 

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Speedway does (or maybe has) actually "punch/punched above its weight" when it comes to TV viewers since Sky started covering the domestic competitions.. 

40,000 or so as a lower end of the viewing audience suggests many still follow the sport, but simply don't see the "live" product as worth attending.. 

40,000 is possibly double an average weekly "live" following in the UK?

Cardiff also shows how many "followers" the sport has with circa 45,000 there each year, with the vast majority UK based..

And it isn't the same circa 45,000 either as many dont attend every single year, yet the crowd levels remain pretty constant, suggesting that there are plenty more followers of the sport out there in total, with, I presume, many being "ex regulars" to domestic Speedway..

Obviously there will be those who attend simply because of the size of the event and their partner, family etc are going, however it does show how many know about Speedway..

It's just getting them to attend a local speedway meeting every week, or even semi regularly, remains the biggest issue to overcome...

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What that tells me is something I have always know, that when something matters enough people will not only watch it on tv in large numbers but as we know from first sight, the play off matches are always very well attended.

And that sums up the state of speedway in this country, the standard matches are just not seen as "can't miss" having fewer and fewer teams in the league does not help.

Ps How many meetings have Eurosport shown thus far? it cant be more than a handful

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