Originally Posted by
never_recover
Well it sounds like you actually get a better coverage than us here in France.. We get a incredibly boring pre-stage "thing" which has nothing to do with cycling, and the live coverage also generally starts 30-60 minutes in...
That sounds very much like the coverage here in Australia ... except our pre-stage "thing" isn't too bad.
And in addition to that, we get a 30 minute highlight show right after work, plus every sports segment with the news on TV or radio has a bit about the Tour. I think at least one of the morning shows on TV also does a 15-ish minute segment on the Tour too.
Originally Posted by
never_recover
Anyway, from this (australian!) article, we get a few interesting stats from last year TDF.. Basically, I think France TV only controls the helicopter feeds but there are many motorcycle feeds and each TV station is free to follow any rider it wants to.. Unlike (I think) most other major event (Soccer, Olympics..) where the feeds are tightly controlled...
How the Tour de France is Broadcast To the World | CyclingTips
• 3,360km of racing
• 35 different start/finish town stages
• broadcast in 190 countries
• 450 journalists
• 121 TV stations covering the event, of which 60 do so live, with 260 cameramen working on motorcycles, in helicopters and at the finish line
• 72 radio stations
• 560 accredited media organisations
• 2400 vehicles on course (organisation, media, publicity caravan, etc.)
• 4,500 people, from riders to organisers to media to members of the publicity caravan and so on
• A 12km long publicity caravan that includes 180 vehicles, 600 people and that distributes nearly 15 million items to fans
Interesting!
I thought the coverage might be specific to each TV station because ours seems to focus mainly on the breakaway group, next on the leaders, then on the Aussies and Canadians in the group, and finally on anything "interesting" that might be going on, like crashes, or someone doing really well, or something. Last year, for example, we had a lot of coverage of Nairo Quintana.
But, as another example, I didn't realise Tejay van Garderen was in this year's Tour until just the other day when an announcer commented that he came across the line 4th or 5th or something. They hardly ever talk about him. However, I'm guessing that if I were watching the TDF on an American station, he might be their focus.