In just over three weeks' time on New Year's Day UK terrestrial TV coverage of horse racing will switch from Channel4 to ITV and this poses a series of problems for Irish based viewers.
The ITV channel is not readily available in Ireland.
The majority of Irish households use one of three different services to watch TV - Saorview, SKY TV and Virgin Media (formerly UPC).
ITV is not available on Saorview or Virgin Media and while it is not one of the standard channels on SKY TV you can add it as an extra channel. (ITV code for adding to SKY box: 10.758 H 22000 5/6)
The main issues with watching an added channel on SKY TV is that you cannot use either the record or pause functions.
ITV Racing will broadcast almost 100 days racing in 2017 but of these only 41 will appear on the main ITV channel while the remaining 60% will be broadcast on ITV4.
In addition to almost 60 days of live racing ITV4 will also be the home of a Saturday morning magazine style program which will replace the current Channel4 Morning Line.
SKY customers can add ITV4 to their other channels in the same way as ITV.
