Racing: Attheraces steps up campaign for TV betting

A raft of new services is coming to Attheraces as the television station attempts to counter allegations that the channel itself is on the way to the rocks of financial destruction.

Attheraces paid £307m at the height of the rights market last year to screen racing from all but 10 of Britain's racetracks. Fundamental to that offer was the belief that interactive betting would recompense the large part of that outlay.

The company refuses to divulge turnover figures since the Tote service was launched on 30 October but insists their backers are happy with results to date. The Attheraces product, which is advertised as free-to-air but is hardly such as viewers have to watch it on BSkyB, will be beefed up within the next two months with the introduction of a fixed-odds alternative to compare with pool prices.

There will also be a telephone betting service and the opportunity to bet into pools for American racing. Increased coverage of racing from Ireland, France and South Africa is also on the agenda.

"If you were to ask me if this is all financially viable I would say yes," Ian Hogg, the chief operating officer at Attheraces, said yesterday. "There was a loss last year and there will be another this year, but we will get into profit by 2004 or early 2005. We obviously believe in interactive television. It grows ever week. Every Saturday is a record Saturday."

The question though is will it grow fast enough. Attheraces claim an average afternoon audience of 72,000, though an alternative set of figures estimates the audience as 38,000. The crux is the projected rise in familiarity with new technology.

There have been teething problems with a registration system for betting via television and it remains faster to place a bet by telephone. Attheraces anticipate that viewers will ultimately want to cut out the telephone and bet with their remote control. "Our research shows the No 1 thing people are after is convenience," Hogg said.

An early victim in the quest for expansion is the Attheraces lunchtime broadcast, also screened on Channel 4. The experiment started in October but has not impressed the terrestrial broadcasters. "It is odds on that it won't go on past 7 March," Hogg said.

While the first year of Attheraces, which celebrates its anniversary on 1 May, was pitched at attracting the non-racing viewer to the channel, 2003 will be dominated by the urge to cultivate betting among the existing audience.

There will, this year at least, be no take-up of the rights to the 10 courses not currently covered but which formed the cornerstone of the action on the recently deceased Racing Channel. "That is unless they come with an offer which includes my favourite price," Hogg said.

For the forseeable future Attheraces will remain free on Sky as it is believed the increased advertising revenue more than compensates for the loss in potential earnings of a charge. "There are no plans for a change," Hogg added. "I would see subscriptions as a backward step."

Attheraces is also distancing itself from accusations that it is morally incompatible to screen the many adverts for finance houses which appear in the breaks. "I have no trouble sleeping at night," Hogg said.

Emma Ramsden, a successful amateur rider, is one of the channel's presenters, along with commentators and form experts.

Attheraces' success or failure will ultimately provide a barometer for the significance of racing in the market place. The current signs are ominous. There appears to be a gradual erosion in broadcast interest, most notably with the end of the Racing Channel. Also recently has come the news that there are to be no more results bulletins on BBC radio and also that Channel 4 is to cut seven days from its schedule this year.