A Brief History

Residing on the 23^rd floor of One Canada Square in Canary Wharf, with its 200-odd employees, Racing Post was established in April, 1986 by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed, and it soon became a leading nationwide newspaper specialised in horseracing. Its first issue on 15^th, April made this newspaper the first one to have a colourful cover.

The newspaper is currently owned by a group of predominantly Irish investors that was put together by an Irish private equity firm FL Partners, and its business today includes horse racing, greyhound racing and sports betting, with The Betting Site, and Soccerbase as its subsidiaries.

The DITI UK interns had this privilege to pay a visit to the newspaper's headquarters in London and were well welcomed by Alan Byrne, Chief executive and editor-in-chief of the Racing Post, accompanied by Charlie Allen, Bloodstock Account Manager.

(DITI group picture with Racing Post CEO Alan Byrne)

In an hour-long introduction plus Q&A session, not only did we learn about the history of the bible of British horseracing, but also we had the opportunity to know “how does Racing Post acquire or produce tips?”

This newspaper employs 15 to 20 people to do this. Some of them go to training centres to get hold of first-hand information.

The tips which go to Pricewise, the flagship of tips, can make the odds drop from 20:1 to 12:1 within five minutes. As such, a good tipster is much harder to find than a good a reporter.

and “what is a raceday like for a newspaper reporter?”

6 to 7 am look at the news

11 am             meet news editor with a news list

If it is a raceday as big as 2000/1000 Guineas, 4 or 5 reporters will be sent to the racecourse working with a local correspondence, all of which will arrive two hours before the race starts.

Send articles with half an hour after the race

9 pm        deadline to print

       N.B. besides newspaper reporters, editors for website and APP will work more flexibly.

After the introduction, we were led by John Cobb, Associate Editor, to comprehend, from the bottom to top, in what way a new issue is produced and collated.

(John Cobb introducing daily work of Racing Post to DITI interns)

What is coincidental is that we arrived on the day when Godolphin's Local Time (GB) won UAE Oaks, therefore, we were fortunate to make a broadcast about the news with the great assistance of Rob Watson, Head of Audio-Visual.

(UK intern Yaote Yu is “broadcasting”for Godolphin horse)

Economics

60% of Racing Post's income derives from subscription, while others include digital revenue (30%), ads, Members' Club, partners with betting company, audio clips sold to radio stations, and selling tips. As tips are closely linked to betting, it is noteworthy to point out that British racing's tax contribution, according to Deloitte's Economic Impact of British Racing 2013, has fallen from GBP 339 million in 2008 to GBP 276 million in 2012 (betting accounts for GBP 100 million) and is estimated to continue to fall because of the following reason.

(photo by Economic Impact of British Racing 2013)

UK's new 15% of Point of Consumption Tax (POC), part of United Kingdom Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014, for UK-facing gaming operators has a huge impact on betting online. As a result, a large number of bookmakers shift their services to other countries, leading to the fact that “betting on racing has migrated to remote means – the large majority of which are currently offshore and hence not subject to British betting taxes or Levy”, thus leaving UK customers less choices.

This POC tax law will not only add to the taxation's woes but also lead to punters use services of unlicensed and unregulated companies as stated by MP Philip Davis "the lower the tax rate, the less the chance of people using unregulated sites and of companies that are currently licensed and regulated becoming unlicensed and unregulated."

Its daily sale volume is about 48,000 copies on average while it is estimated it will sell more than 110,000 copies on Cheltenham Tuesday, which is even more than that of Royal Ascot. In addition, Mr. Byrne proudly claims that “Racing Post earns more from sale than ads, which is rather significant as most of UK newspapers are the opposite.”

New Era

In an advertising trend which makes “dollars become cents, pounds become pennies, print becomes digital”, Racing Post's digital earnings in 2007 only accounted for 3-4%, but now it is 30%, with 1.2 million downloads of its app.

Unlike newspaper, whose main readers' age ranges from 45 to 55, viewers (35 to 45) open their website twice a day. What is more, smart phone users (25 to 35) open their app six times daily. Besides it has 144,000 followers on Twitter, 130,000 on Facebook and 2,300 on Instagram.

Promotion events are conducted online and offline, some of which are stunning such as the one on 17^th June, 2013—31 brave jockeys dressed in silks came down to London Underground to promote the incoming Royal Ascot.

(photo by Racing Post)