Tells us what cycling is coming up on TV....

[mjr]

I will be watching this thread so if anyone has any ways of watching it at a reasonable price- and preferably legally - then I will be interested to hear about it

A satellite dish pointing at 19.2°E and a cheap digital receiver picks up Eurosport German. 5°W and a slightly more expensive receiver picks up RAI and France televisions. As far as I know, watching foreign free broadcasts that overspill into the UK is still legal, despite recent law changes. One off cost of £80-200 for the equipment plus the cost of running wires. No idea how long it'll work for but I've been watching like this about 25 years and bought three receivers (original, then HD upgrade, then Multistream upgrade) and two dishes (the first one rusted out when I lived 800m from the coast).

I assume using a VPN is still breaking the terms of use of the site hosting the original stream, but I've not checked. The VPN companies will almost certainly take the money and turn a blind eye unless you transfer too much data.

 

[Ajax Bay]

https://www.privateinternetaccess.c...rceCondition=true&aff_id=14072&source=video24
£1.57 a month. @mjr will be able to offer insights and and also whether the extras are worth the shilling.

 

[scout05]

It's just sickening, and all the presenters are supporting it it, saying it a way to make cycling more exciting and increase viewers in the UK. So take it they are getting a nice salary from it! I want to fund the sport I love to watch not a select few execs only interested in money. I really hope people don't fall for this and they are forced to revert due to massive drop in revenue.

And if it is really a problem, why only the UK?

VPN and Eurosport it is...will still be half the price they are charging and just keep switching VPN as they offer different discount 👍🏻

 

[Dogtrousers]

It's just sickening, and all the presenters are supporting it it, saying it a way to make cycling more exciting and increase viewers in the UK. So take it they are getting a nice salary from it! I want to fund the sport I love to watch not a select few execs only interested in money. I really hope people don't fall for this and they are forced to revert due to massive drop in revenue.

And if it is really a problem, why only the UK?

VPN and Eurosport it is...will still be half the price they are charging and just keep switching VPN as they offer different discount 👍🏻

Well the presenters are hardly likely to criticise it are they? Pushing the channel they work for is part of their job.

As to why only the UK? I'll make a guess that in the UK cycling is more of a fringe sport in the UK than in continental Europe. So there are relatively few subscribers watching ES for the cycling, low enough not to bother with and if you can convert a minority of those onto the big full package then all the better. So maybe there aren't enough people watching cycling in the UK to actually cause a "massive drop in revenue". And maybe in continental Europe there are more cycling viewers so they need to be given a bit more respect.

Just guessing.

 

[mjr]

https://www.privateinternetaccess.c...rceCondition=true&aff_id=14072&source=video24
£1.57 a month. @mjr will be able to offer insights and and also whether the extras are worth the shilling.

I don't remember reading anything bad about that VPN provider (unlike some!), but they do say pretty clearly in several places "Disclaimer: Using PIA VPN for illegal purposes is a violation of our Terms of Service" and watching a video service (subscription or not) while not being in the geographic area they have licensed rights for and faking your location with a VPN seems likely to be against the video service's terms of use and probably illegal. So if you're using it for watching streams illegally, they could boot you off whenever they like, but as I've written elsewhere, I suspect they'll turn a blind eye as long as you don't hog their bandwidth.

Their cookie pop-up is a bit obnoxious with no easy "reject all" option, which does make me doubt whether they really let users have as much privacy as they imply. The "Dedicated IP" add-on might be counterproductive because while it may mean you don't lose access because another VPN user attacks the streaming site, it will also make you easier to track and disconnect if they suspect you. The "anti-virus" add-on is probably only worth it if you're not happy with your current security subscriptions.

 

[mjr]

Well the presenters are hardly likely to criticise it are they? Pushing the channel they work for is part of their job.

Unsurprisingly, the itv4 presenters with other non-conflicting work (Dave now working for some bike company and Pete working for Astana) have criticised past changes, as well as Ned (whose other commentary is pretty niche now), but I wonder if others are hoping they might get hired by WB.

As to why only the UK? I'll make a guess that in the UK cycling is more of a fringe sport in the UK than in continental Europe. So there are relatively few subscribers watching ES for the cycling, low enough not to bother with and if you can convert a minority of those onto the big full package then all the better. So maybe there aren't enough people watching cycling in the UK to actually cause a "massive drop in revenue". And maybe in continental Europe there are more cycling viewers so they need to be given a bit more respect.

Just guessing.

Not only that, but in other European countries, they're competing with either the host broadcaster for a grand tour and some classics (which will almost always be free-to-air in the host country and overspill into neighbours) which basically blows a third of their offer away, or with European Broadcasting Union members who think the ad revenue is worth the cost of the rights, thanks to there being more cycling viewers there. Also, for some broadcasters, a presenter and couple of commentators talking over EBU pictures is going to be much cheaper than the other programming, because repeats of old USA shows (like itv4 often has in the daytime) cost them more than itv because of repeat fees to the dubbing artists too, plus in some countries the cycling is shown on one of the main channels where old foreign repeats would be politically unacceptable anyway, making it appear even "cheaper" in relative terms.

I expect the Tour of Britain will stay on itv for now, as long as itv gets more in ads and sponsorship than the host broadcaster (Century TV still?) sells it for. The question is what happens to viewer figures for that once the flagship Tour de France and its friends (Paris-Nice and so on) go and so what happens to ad and sponsor revenue.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I expect the Tour of Britain will stay on itv for now, as long as itv gets more in ads and sponsorship than the host broadcaster (Century TV still?) sells it for. The question is what happens to viewer figures for that once the flagship Tour de France and its friends (Paris-Nice and so on) go and so what happens to ad and sponsor revenue.

Really, it's all about the Tour de France isn't it. Things like the Giro, Vuelta, RVV, MSR, PBP, ToB (especially ToB) etc... are niche items for a relatively small number of enthusiasts only. The TdF is the only cycling event that will have any real penetration. So this year is a bit of a phoney war, in preparation for next year when WB have everything.

 

[mjr]

Really, it's all about the Tour de France isn't it. Things like the Giro, Vuelta, RVV, MSR, PBP, ToB (especially ToB) etc... are niche items for a relatively small number of enthusiasts only. The TdF is the only cycling event that will have any real penetration. So this year is a bit of a phoney war, in preparation for next year when WB have everything.

I don't know. I've not got the figures to hand, not even the most recent viewing figures for itv TdF and ToB. I suspect the TdF is a much bigger draw than everything else, possibly more than everything else combined, but I also suspect there are advantages to having all Grand Tours, to having all World Tour races and to having everything.

If WB do what I suspect is the optimal approach to extract the most money from the most viewers, then they will need almost everything. That approach would be to split cycling between two sports packages, one with the TdF and maybe some other races, and another with the rest of the season, each priced a bit lower than the combined premium package. Then they can still get some money out of some of the viewers who are only interested in the Tour de France (and maybe a few others like Roubaix and one of preparation races), while getting two package subs out of the die-hard fans.

This will be presented as responding to viewer demands for something cheaper than the £31/month all-sports package, which I suspect won't be optimal, but they might hold out until at least the Giro to test how many mugs won't find another way to watch the spring classics and pay up.

 

[rich p]

Just doing the maths. If I subscribe from now till the end of July (so stop after the TdFF) it’ll cost me £224. So I need to cancel Zwift and stop my weekly Friday coffee treat and I can just about balance it out!
They are so greedy. I’m furious!

Anyone know any free smart trainer websites I can use instead of Zwift?

MyWhoosh is free, Cathryn,

 

[Xipe Totec]

MyWhoosh is free, Cathryn,

As is IndieVelo, as far as I know.

I think for WB the UK is a small market with low uptake for cycling & they won't care if hardly anyone is prepared to suck up the price gouging.

I'd also predict a big increase in interest in dodgy FireSticks/Rokus, and expect Tiz-Cycling might be thinking about a server upgrade.

 

[cougie uk]

i MIGHT consider paying £30 for the Tour month - but they're wildly optimistic if they think I'm going from £7 to £30 for the coverage I watch maybe an hour or two a week outside of the big tours.

 

[mjr]

Back to normal:

Saturday 1 September: Tour Down Under
CNBC HD - 14:00 - 15:00 (60.0 min)
Santos Tour Down Under 2025 2: Men's Highlights: First held in 1999, the Santos Tour Down Under is the biggest cycling race in the southern hemisphere.


Is this on any UK catch up service?

 

[Exlaser2]

The problem is NO free to air broadcaster even bothered to even bid for the free to air coverage . Something that didn’t happen in the rest of Europe.
So this allowed WB to swallow up all the coverage. They now have a monopoly and can charge what they want and they are. 😟.
We either pay, do with out it or get it illegally.

The best we can hope for long term is that enough people don’t up grade to the premium package and also cancel their base discovery package that WB decide to move the coverage from the premium package and put it back on the base discovery package.
But I am not holding out much hope . 😟

 

[mjr]

The problem is NO free to air broadcaster even bothered to even bid for the free to air coverage .

As far as I can tell, this was not what happened. It was not an open auction but negotiations and ITV were involved in the EBU contract (as in past negotiations, as for fellow UK EBU member Channel 4 before it), until they would no longer cover the extra cost for the EBU contract to include UK rights. It seems ASO were asking more than ITV would pay, possibly because they knew how much more WBD would pay if they had exclusivity in the UK, or it might simply have been ASO raising the price in line with inflation while ITV was seeing falling audiences and ad revenue, in part due to no UK GC contender recently.

 

[Exlaser2]

True . But any uk broadcaster that is a member of EBU COULD have bid . But didn’t . Not worth the money for them . ☹️