TV racing under threat of blackout

Live daily racing could disappear from television screens from 29 March with disastrous consequences for British racecourses after attheraces tore up its £307million media rights deal today.

The time bomb which has been ticking inside the sport for months finally went off when the dedicated digital racing channel used an escape clause relating to reduced profits from Tote betting to nullify its contract with Britain's 49 top tracks.

The decision could see the sport plunged into a similar financial crisis to the one which enveloped Nationwide League football after the collapse of the ITV Digital deal.

Attheraces MD Ian Hogg has admitted the channel could go under unless talks to put a reduced deal in place succeed. He said: "I sincerely hope we won't go off the air, but we have given 60 days' notice and if we haven't got replacement rights agreements in place by then we will have no UK pictures and nothing to broadcast." Attheraces have started negotiations with individual tracks after losing patience with the Racecourse Association's refusal to accept reduced terms.

Some reports suggest the new deal will involve cuts of £100m or more, which would cause massive problems for racecourses and the near certainty of reduced prizemoney. "I don't want to get into details of negotiations, but I'm very optimistic that we will still be around in six months' time," added Hogg. "The whole industry has benefitted from this channel and I can't believe we're going to throw it all away."

Major meetings will still continue on terrestrial channels BBC and Channel 4.

The arrival of attheraces in May 2002 was greeted with open arms by all bar 10 of Britain's racetracks, but sceptics always doubted whether a business plan based heavily on people betting interactively through their television remote controls would succeed.