Ed Chamberlin to front ITV’s horse racing coverage
Horse racing coverage is returning to ITV Sport after an absence of 31-years. Today ITV announced Ed Chamberlin will be the main presenter of their horse racing coverage.
“I am absolutely thrilled to be joining ITV and to be given this great opportunity. These are exciting times with ITV returning as the home of British racing from 1st January 2017. I had 16 years at Sky full of great memories and brilliant people. It was hard to leave but this opportunity was too good to miss.” – Ed Chamberlin
Ed will front ITV’s exclusive live free to air broadcasts of race meetings throughout the season across both ITV and ITV4, starting from January 2017. He joins ITV from Sky Sports where he has spent much of his career, building up a wealth of experience in covering major sporting events and in recent years was the presenter of the network’s Monday Night Football show.
Ed has a lifelong passion for horse racing and prior to entering the media, worked for Ladbrokes. His appointment follows the announcement at the start of this year of ITV’s exclusive new four year deal to show UK horse racing on terrestrial television which takes effect from the start of 2017, when its free to air coverage will begin.
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Horse racing became a regular fixture on ITV as part of the weekend World of Sport programme and the ITV Seven strand – reflecting the seven races the channel screened each week, usually mid-week and weekend offerings. The first race aired on the 4th October 1969 and coverage remained with ITV until 1985 when coverage was slowly moved over to Channel 4, which at that time was a ‘sister station’ to ITV, the latter dumping off any unwanted broadcast formats to the fourth network – this also included ITV Schools programming which followed in 1987. The racing coverage has remained with Channel 4 Racing since its move from ITV in the mid-80s. ITV and Channel 4 parted their association in 1993.
As part of the return to loving horses ITV announced last month that ITV Sport will produce its racing coverage encompassing live broadcasts of almost 100 days of racing each year across its main ITV channel and ITV4, in addition to a magazine preview programme broadcast each Saturday morning on ITV4.
“Ed’s skill as a presenter of live sport is matched only by his love of racing, so we’re delighted to bring someone with his attributes on board as we build up to our coverage starting in the new year.” – Niall Sloane, ITV Director of Sport
ITV will show a minimum of 34 racing fixtures on ITV main channel and 60 on ITV4.
