Le Tour-ITV Coverage stats

[karlos_the_jackal]

Seems our coverage went really well (work at ITV doing risk management) should help with future coverage of other tours.

The tour de France has turned out to be a tour de triumph for ITV.

A fantastic 4.2m people tuned in to ITV4's coverage of the race across the three-week run, with nearly 300,000 individuals watching the highlights show each night - doubling the channel's average slot share for the year.

On ITV.com, the dedicated Tour De France online destination had nearly 1.7m page impressions - up by 17% on 2008. There were also 1m video plays, a massive 714% increase from last year.

The site, which included video catch-up, animations of every stage of the race, additional clips, Twitter updates, blogs, rider profiles and a podcast, was a hit with 324,000 unique users in July, up 58% year-on-year.

And the success also spread to our red button service. For the first time, full-screen live streaming was available via the red button and this interactive service received around 0.5 million interactions, with 0.25million of those being views of the video – an increase of 250% year-on-year.

And it wasn't just about the numbers. There was plenty of critical acclaim for our coverage too, with Esquire magazine calling it the "the greatest show on Earth" and the Daily Mail also singing its praises.

 

[Tim Bennet.]

The Daily Mail article is actually quite good. It gives praise and takes the piss exactly as appropriate.

It even describes Paul Sherwen as an ex 'professional bike rider' nicely mimicking the most irritating thing about the ITV4 coverage; Sherwen's inability to contribute without including that damn phrase.

 

[karlos_the_jackal]

That reminds me i'll have to look at the duty log and see how many moans we got about him. He probably is the david pleat of cycling commentary

 

[marinyork]

The viewing figures for some nights were way above that. Wednesday night on w/e 19th got 597,000. Two other days that week got similarly high numbers.

 

[Crackle]

Good, This means that ITV will keep with it I hope.

 

[stoofa]

to many adverts

 

[Will1985]

to many adverts

It has to be funded somehow!

Karlos, you couldn't accidentally bid for terrestrial Giro rights perhaps? Maybe Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix live as well...

 

[stoatsngroats]

Great news for ITV....keep involved, we NEED terrestrial TV support for cycling!

The Red button choicw is excellent - there's such a wicked future for this.....


Well done, and beers-all-round......

 

[trustysteed]

By the time you factor in the advert breaks and the previous days recap, you get little, coverage of the actual race. Thank goodness for Eurosports live coverage where you don't mind a few breaks over the course of 4-5 hours viewing.

 

[karlos_the_jackal]

It has to be funded somehow!

Karlos, you couldn't accidentally bid for terrestrial Giro rights perhaps? Maybe Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix live as well...

I'll try, but we havent got any money at the moment!

 

[dan_bo]

I was intending to Email ITV to congratulate them for thier tour coverage etc etc, but I forgot. Congratulations and I hope this leads on to more cycle sport on telly.

 

[Hont]

That reminds me i'll have to look at the duty log and see how many moans we got about him. He probably is the david pleat of cycling commentary

Can I add a retrospective moan about him now? He is one of the main reasons I prefer the Eurosport coverage.

 

[beancounter]

He probably is the david pleat of cycling commentary

I didn't think he was THAT bad.

Actually, it's impossible to be THAT bad.

bc

 

[Molecule Man]

I feel a little guilty to have abandoned the ITV coverage in favour of Eurosport.
I actually think the whole ITV package is better presented, I really like the pre-race build-up stuff with Gary Imlach, Chris Boardman, etc. The production team do a fantastic job.
Unfortunately I just cannot stand Liggett and Sherwen's incessantly shouty style of commentary. It's like a caricature of sports commentary, like what actors might do in an advert.

 

[Hont]

I feel a little guilty to have abandoned the ITV coverage in favour of Eurosport.
I actually think the whole ITV package is better presented, I really like the pre-race build-up stuff with Gary Imlach, Chris Boardman, etc. The production team do a fantastic job.
Unfortunately I just cannot stand Liggett and Sherwen's incessantly shouty style of commentary. It's like a caricature of sports commentary, like what actors might do in an advert.

+1 for that. I like the highlights show, even if Ned is "microphone in your face man". I don't mind Phil Liggett so much (at least he notices what's actually going on in the race which is not praise you can always bestow on Eurosport). Sherwen, though, appears to only know 6 riders and 7 phrases.