Isle of Man-based company Greenlight TV has won the contract to televise the TT and leads a consortium which includes Duke Video and and global programme distributor SES.

The outgoing contractor, North One, is appealing the decision and has requested a full explanation. It has, however, retained the contract for distribution.

The change came as a surprise to many but the new contractors are promising better coverage and wider distribution from the current 25 million TV viewers and 10 million online users worldwide with live TV a definite possibility further down the road.

What the on-screen line-up will be is yet to be confirmed but audiences are now familiar with the Steve Parrish and James Whitham commentary team, Craig Doyle anchor and colour analysis from Steve Plater and, last year, Cameron Donald.

It is significant that one of the backers is SES, one of the world's biggest programme distributors claiming to reach 325 million homes with content from 700 broadcasters on 7500 channels via 62 satellites. Rather grandly known as SES 'beyond frontiers' but, it appears with some justification, it has a base in the Isle of Man and has been a TT partner for some time.

The Manx Government was involved in more controversy when Enterprise Minister Laurence Skelly was asked to resign over the "Vision Nine" affair. The pursuit of a commercial partner for the TT resulted in no appointment but an 862 page report by a scrutiny committee headed  by  Michael Coleman MLC.

He suggested the Minister lacked integrity using an analogy of the Titanic and the Concordia. On the former the captain went down with his passengers, one the latter he did not. He said the island had dodged a bullet: "We spent five years working on this and £350,000 on consultancy fees and what did we end up with? Nothing."

Mr Skelly said he was not resigning and blamed a systematic failure of  government process: "A number of people could have and should have been interviewed but were not - not least the Sports Consultancy who were both our project advisers and legal advisers for the best part of eight years."

The Manx Government, ever watchful, has also put a damper on the ambitions of the  Eppynt Welsh Road Race. The founders fancied calling it the Welsh TT but a letter bearing an Isle of Man postmark suggested it might be a breach of their TT trademark and could they please desist. Presumably they haven't heard of the Dutch TT or can't do anything about it.