ITV peak audience passes 'magic million benchmark' on first three days of Royal Ascot - but Euros hit overall figures

A peak audience of more than one million people tuned in for the opening three days of Royal Ascot but the overall viewing figures suffered last week in competition with international football, according to ITV Racing.

The coverage was split between ITV1 and ITV4 due to clashes with the broadcaster's European Championships programming.

ITV showed a number of matches throughout the week, including Croatia v Albania at 2pm on Tuesday, while the BBC's coverage of England v Denmark also impacted audience share.

"Overall we're very happy," said ITV Racing's racing editor Paul Cooper. "We got a peak viewership of more than one million on the first three days. The magic million is our benchmark for Royal Ascot and to hit that on days two and three – which sometimes don't always get up to that figure – was very pleasing.

"We can't get away from it. There's a clash with the football, which switches us to ITV4 when it's being shown on ITV, while we also clashed with the BBC's coverage. We have to accept European and World Cup football will always drive huge figures, which does compromise us when we move to ITV4."

Donnacha O'Brien is interviewed by ITV Racing's Rishi Persad on FridayCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

Viewership figures on the main channel were said to have held up well throughout the week. A peak audience of 1.03m tuned in to the opening day on ITV1 with an average audience of 740,000, marginally down from 1.09m and 845,000 last year.

A peak audience of 1.22m on Wednesday and 1.06m on Thursday represented improvements on last season but the numbers on Friday and Saturday were down, with a peak audience of 825,000 on Friday (down from 1.07m) and 740,000 on the final day (down from 1.25m).

Cooper said the variety of winners last week had helped to generate interest. He nominated Billy Loughnane recording his first Royal Ascot winner in the Coventry Stakes on Tuesday, after which his parents gave an emotional interview in the winner's enclosure, as a highlight, as well as Colin Keane riding a winner for his father in the Duke of Edinburgh on Friday. 

However, the standout moment for Cooper was Isle Of Jura landing Saturday's Hardwicke Stakes, and he said: "Callum Shepherd's reaction afterwards was sensational. I haven't met anybody who didn't think he was hard done by losing the ride in the Derby and there seemed to be a real warmth from everybody when he won that race. His story of bouncing back applies in any walk of life and it's easy for us to explain to the audience. Most people can relate to that."

As well as flagging Luke Harvey "ambushing the party tent in the Windsor enclosure" and dancing with racegoers as an off-track highlight, Cooper spoke about what he described as a buoyant atmosphere last week.

"You can't underestimate that in television terms," he added. "When the sun shines, everything just looks better. When you're trying to get reaction after a race, it can be a nightmare when it's raining and nobody wants to talk.

"Overall it's not been an easy year or so for racing but I thought last week felt like a step in the right direction. Of course, there will be steps in the opposite direction and we have to deal with those but last week felt like a good one for the sport."

Read these next:

The Front Page: who were the big winners and losers at Royal Ascot? 

Forgive or condemn? Chris Cook rates the unplaced favourites at Royal Ascot 

ITV's Ascot coverage was cloyingly over-enthusiastic - its role is not promotional but to entertain, inform and comment 

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