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Tuning in to Cycling.tv
Catching cycling on television in North America is spotty at best, so fans of the sport are often limited to on-again, off-again freeride shows or ancient footage on specialty networks like the Canadian Extreme Sports.
Unlike in Europe, where bike racing is often shown on Eurosport, racing footage on this side of the pond is virtually non-existent. The one exception to that rule, of course, is the Outdoor Life Network with its Tour de France coverage every July, but even that is in question now that Lance is out of the picture.
Personally I find watching cycling motivating while I’m sweating it out on the trainer in the middle of winter, but with such limited coverage the only option I had was to watch road racing or mountain bike footage on DVD. Now, however, there is another option for those of us looking for moving pictures. And best of all it’s free… well most of it anyway.
Cycling.tv is a London, England-based broadcaster showing live and taped events over the Internet. The site was launched in October 2003, and since then it has been steadily picking up steam.
“We expect to have 750,000 viewers around the world in 2006,” said Cycling.tv’s Rebecca Sullivan, and with those viewers based in 170 countries, the site definitely caters to a worldwide audience. “USA accounts for 36 percent of our users. We expect consistent growth worldwide. Italy has risen from 16th to 3rd this month with enormous growth,” Sullivan said recently.
The site started out being entirely free, but in 2005 it added a premium channel showing some of the larger live events.
For 2006, Cycling.tv has gone to a multi-channel format including a premium pay channel, the free general cycling channel, a travel and leisure channel and one channel dedicated to mountain biking and triathlons.
The premium channel costs around 20 euros a year (around $27 Canadian), but it guarantees viewers access to some of the biggest classic races from around the world.
“We want to deliver a free service where possible, but we believe that a free service and a small annual subscription is the best model,” Sullivan said. “It relies on a low tariff/high volume of users, but we reinvest in content, content and content.”
Also new for 2006 is a daily news show hosted by Sullivan and Anthony McCrossan. The show has racing coverage, features, bike show coverage and more. The site will also have 70 days of live racing this year on its free and pay channels.
And down the road? Cycling.tv is already one of the biggest cycling broadcasters, but they still have lofty goals. “We want to be delivering the Tour de France to millions of mobile customers using Wireless Mobile,” Sullivan said.
1. Posted by Cory | 11:13 pm, 8 March 2006
I actually spent quite a bit of time at the site, after I’d moved from my iBook to my PC and from Firefox to Internet Explorer. So there were definitely some accessibility issues and I think there are some usability problems with the site and normally that would be enough to turn me off.
However, I rarely get to see cycling coverage so I’m willing to change my preferences to access the content. And since it’s mostly free, I think that it’s pretty good value.