Royal Ascot TV audience falls but Friday and Saturday peak figures buck the trend

Royal Ascot resulted in mixed viewing figures for ITV Racing, although its coverage ended on a high as peak viewership on the final two days of the meeting eclipsed last year's figures.

Racing's terrestrial TV broadcaster, whose coverage was fronted by usual lead presenters Ed Chamberlin and Francesca Cumani, showed every race live across the five days, with the first six contests on the main ITV channel and the last on ITV4.

The meeting, which took place during a heatwave, attracted a peak audience of 846,000 on Friday's Coronation Stakes card, up from 825,000 in 2024, while Saturday hit a high of 930,000 viewers, up from 740,000 12 months ago.

The average viewing figure across the week was slightly down at 650,000 compared to 676,000 last year.

Although the figures ended on a more positive note, the audience peak fell to record lows on the first three days of the meeting since ITV took the terrestrial rights in 2017.

A peak of 766,000 viewers tuned in for the opening day, headlined by Field Of Gold's dominant win in the St James's Palace Stakes. The same day had a peak of 1.03 million viewers last year.

Prince of Wales's Stakes day on Wednesday fared a little better and reached a peak of 922,000 viewers (down from 1,217,000), while viewership peaked at 956,000 (1,061,000 in 2024) on Ascot Gold Cup day.

However, the average audience share of 11.7 per cent across the week was 20 per cent higher than last year, when it was 9.72 per cent.

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