TOCA, the motorsports promoter that organizes the annual British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) series, has confirmed a new multi-year broadcast agreement with UK free-to-air commercial broadcaster ITV.
Through the three-year deal, which will begin in 2027 and run through the 2029 season “at least”, ITV will once again provide both live coverage and post-event highlights on ITV’s linear and digital platforms.
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This includes live race coverage on the quaternary ITV4 linear channel and the ITVX OTT streaming service, Saturday qualifying round coverage on the ITV YouTube channel (covering both the UK and global audience), and 90-minute highlights packages on ITV4, ITVX, and the primary ITV1 channel (schedule dependent).
In all, the coverage will amount to 10 7-hour live race broadcasts, 10 90-minute highlights programs for the top-tier BTCC races, 34 60-minute highlight programs concerning the BTCC’s supporting races (including the F4 British Championship, Porsche Carrera Cup GB, and the MINI Challenge) to be shown on ITV4, and BTCC qualifying livestreams globally.
Additionally, ITV will also stream full live race-day coverage on its YouTube channel for all markets globally besides the UK and US, where live broadcast deals are agreed, ensuring wide free-to-air distribution in non-key markets for the series.
ITV has broadcast BTCC coverage since 2002, and this new agreement will take the total partnership to 27 consecutive years in length.
Speaking on the deal, BTCC chief executive Alan Gow said: “This new contract underlines my unwavering commitment to continue to keep the BTCC as freely accessible to as many people as possible… rather than for it to be hidden behind a paywall. My policy has always been for the BTCC to have the widest reach achievable, and our long relationship with ITV makes that happen.
“In fact, the BTCC is the only UK motorsport that has live, free-to-air coverage of an entire championship on mainstream linear television… and, thanks to our great partners at ITV, long may that continue.”
This deal is good news for the BTCC’s top-tier sponsors, which include title sponsor Kwik Fit (the car repair company), tyre partner Goodyear, lubricants heavyweight LiquiMoly, and more.
