Racing 240 audience up 24%

4RacingTV’s horseracing channel, Racing 240, recorded a unique reach of 462 221 viewers between the tracking period 18 April to 26 May 2022, as reported by Nielsen Sports, the global leader in research and data intelligence.

Jean Willers, Nielsen Sports South Africa Managing Director, said Racing 240’s viewership was 24% higher than its predecessor Tellytrack (372 445 viewers) over the same period in 2021.

“Since being added to the Broadcast Research Council’s (BRC) panel of channels, we are now able to accurately analyse and report on independently verified audience numbers,” says Willers, who said Racing 240 had shown a strong performance in its first month of being tracked and independently verified.

Racing 240, which launched on DStv on 19 January 2022, has been attracting new viewers on a daily basis. The top performing broadcast to date was the “World Sports Betting Maiden Plate” race day at Kenilworth Racecourse on 20 April 2022, which attracted a unique audience of 66 025 viewers.

The initial TV viewer profile indicates that the horseracing viewer mirrors the demographic profile of all South Africans, with 51.9% male viewers and 48.1% female viewers of the channel.

The average age of Racing 240 viewers is 40 years old and the highest percentage of viewers came from KwaZulu Natal (25%), followed by the Western Cape (19%), and Gauteng and North West (12%) and Eastern Cape (10%).

“We are encouraged by Nielsen’s first report on Racing 240. We will continue to engage with the various industry stakeholders, our existing racing community and our targeted audiences to shape our content and channels. Measuring the impact of any change is key and we will continue working closely with Nielsen to regularly assess and report on this,” said Stephen Watson, Head of 4Racing.TV’.

Racing 240 will broadcast the showpiece Hollywoodbets Durban July on Saturday 2 July.