Horse Racing
Royal Ascot make major changes to avoid Euro 2024 TV clashes for viewers
With the Euro 2024 tournament underway during the five day racing extravaganza, officials at Ascot have acted to maximise the TV exposure of its key races
ITV Racing viewers have been guaranteed uninterrupted coverage of Royal Ascot’s biggest races on the network’s main channel during the Euros.
The prestigious meeting will be staged over five days, from June 18 to 22, at the same time the Euro 2024 football tournament is taking place in Germany.
ITV is sharing coverage of the event with the BBC who together will show every game at the championships. As a result there will be times when the racing will shift to ITV4 with five matches scheduled for ITV1 kicking off at either 2pm or 5pm.
England’s only game during the week, against Denmark on Thursday at 5pm, will shown on BBC but will be on the big screens at Ascot.
But each day’s feature, the St James’s Palace Stakes, Prince of Wales’s Stakes, Gold Cup, Coronation Stakes and Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes, will all be on the main ITV channel.
Ascot has achieved this by pushing back the off time of the fourth race each day, the traditional slot for the feature race, by five minutes to 4.25pm and moving others up the running order.
On Wednesday, the Queen’s Vase (3.05) has been moved to second race on the card, with the Kensington Palace Stakes (5.40) becoming the sixth race.
Friday’s Group 1 Coronation Stakes has moved up the running order to become the third race on the card, with the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes (4.25) the fourth race.
On Saturday, the Hardwicke Stakes will be the second race on the card at 3.05 with the feature Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes now the third race at 3.45. The Jersey Stakes (4.25) will be the fourth race on the card.
Ascot’s head of corporate and industry affairs Will Aitkenhead said: “This year we have worked with our broadcast partners to make a few changes to the running order and timings in order to maximise exposure of the Group 1 races with the men’s UEFA European Championships also taking place this June.
“We’ll show the games on screens around the site as well in all enclosures which will hopefully add to the day for everybody.”
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