Let me put it in perspective for you guys. The 2 national broadcasters both have live coverage throughout the day of the TDF. At night both show edited highlights of the day (just in case you missed the 5-7 hours during the day)
If this bores me I flick over to Eurosport, who cover it from 2pm. This does not include French TV5 or German RTL (all available to most Europeans) who all cover the TDF.
It is not a problem finding a station covering the TDF here in Europe. I do not really care about the football etc. that is on these channels, what is important is that no horses and footballs are to be found on them during the month of July......I saw some of the TDF last year on ESPN and the quality of the sat feed was pretty crappy.