Did ITV not show the National in the days when listed events were often on both the BBC and ITV?
Brough Scott has just answered that for us. It's a no! The prestigious courses such as Ascot, Goodwood and Aintree were BBC tracks.
ITV could have shown it, if they'd wanted to, but they'd had had to have mounted a full OB rig for a single race. The Beeb did the same for a few years for the Derby, despite Epsom being an ITV course?