Isle of Man TT: Massive global audience for TT

Isle of Man TT Press Release

The 2009 Isle of Man TT proved a ratings’ hit for ITV4, with race highlights dominating the TV channel’s top 10 most view programs.

The first four places in ITV4’s top 10 for TT Race Week were taken by the TT highlights programs. Coverage of the Pokerstars Senior TT achieved the channels 4’s highest viewing figures of the week with an average audience of 462,000 and a peak of over 500,000.

In addition to bringing 2,500 more people to the Isle of Man than during the 2008 TT, this year’s event attracted extensive international media coverage. The full international TV highlights package was broadcast in 35 countries, with a total household reach of 209,627,000.

Leading broadcasters Discovery Channel (US), Channel Ten (Australia), TVE (Spain), Rai (Italy), Abu Dhabi TV (UAE), Sport Five (Czech Republic), ViaSat (Scandinavia), Channel 4 (Finland) and Band Sport (Brazil) all took the full package of 10 hour-long international programs produced by North One Television.

ESPN (Brazil) also took the 2 one-hour highlight shows.

As well as the exclusive country specific deals signed with leading broadcasters by North One, the revitalized series of races and the world’s first clean emissions motorsport event, the TTXGP, also attracted the interest of leading international news stations.

In addition to three regional BBC news crews, Fuji TV (Japan), ARD (Germany), Rai (Italy), Reuters and TF1 (France) also filed news stories from the Island. There was also a crew from Mentorn TV with presenter John Sergeant, who was filming a program for ITV for release in October.

Focus TV (Germany), MTV 3 (Finland), Deal Motion (Japan), Reel to Reel (UK) BBC3 and ITV also sent crews and presenters.

Independent analysis of the television coverage by media analysts TNS Sport has revealed the Isle of Man TT ‘brand’ received global exposure to an equivalent advertising value of £4,914,550, of which £406,753 was in the UK.

In addition, a further £2,188,405 was generated in press coverage, including more than £1,000,000 in UK titles.

Tourism and Leisure Minister Martyn Quayle said: “The media coverage has been a great boost to the profile of the Isle of Man and has allowed us to promote many of the facilities and experiences on offer to visitors. The Isle of Man’s scenery and environment have also provided a stunning backdrop to the race footage. It’s encouraging to see the increase in visitors on the back of our work to improve the races and the promotion of the event and we hope that this year’s successes will lead to additional visitors booking for 2010 TT.”