New race channel hits first hurdle

Lydia Hislop12 April 2012

Britain's newest sporting TV channel has been thrown into chaos after jockeys refused to give interviews in a row over cash.

In the wake of the ? 178.5million crash of ITV Digital this week, yesterday's launch of attheraces, dedicated to racing, was marred when riders refused all interviews, reportedly on the orders of the Jockeys' Association, pending the outcome of a £1 million media rights demand.

Jockeys at Ascot, Cheltenham and Pontefract boycotted the channel. Today their spokesman said they would continue to refuse interviews "until their contribution is valued".

Owned by a consortium comprising Channel 4, BSkyB and Arena, and broadcast on Sky's digital platform, attheraces paid £307 million last June for the rights to 49 of Britain's 59 racecourses.

Chris Stoddart, chief executive of attheraces, admitted the silence had surprised his team and challenged jockeys to "come clean" on what they are demanding.

He said: "It emerges that for some years jockeys have been accepting cash or invoiced payments for interviews - whether with Channel 4, the BBC or the Racing Channel. If we have to make these payments in order to speak to jockeys at their place of work, we will look into the matter."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in