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Week ending August 11, 2007

Médiamétrie - TOUR DE FRANCE 2007: TWO-TIER INTERNATIONAL TV AUDIENCE RESULTS- August 10, 2007

from Laure Osmanian Molinero/Médiamétrie

The last edition of the Tour de France took place in a particular context and registered disappointing audience results. This underlines the unique character of the event in the television channel’s summer schedules, as well as the importance of the nationality of the champions participating in the competition.

The international audience results are less than expected and the audiences of the Tour declined in several countries.In Spain, the audience has been declining since 2000 and the public channels TVE1 and La2 attracted on average only 1 million of viewers against 1,7 million in 2000. The presence of numerous Spanish cyclists among the top competitors, of whom the winner of the Tour 2007 should have tended to improve the results. However, the absence of a deserving champion worthy to success like Miguel Indurain as well as the affairs that penalize cycling probably moderated the interest of the competition in the eyes of the Spanish viewers.

The German channel Sat1, who decided to broadcast the Tour after the sudden withdrawal of ARD and ZDF, gathered on average during the 9 broadcasted stages 2,5 times less viewers than the two public channels in 2006. The withdrawal of the ex-champion Jan Ullrich and the Sinkewitz affair certainly contributed in the loss of interest from the audience. However, two important points emerge from the results of the international TV audiences.

First, thanks to the strong will of the organizer to maintain a fair competition throughout the race, there has been no audience drop during the Tour. Viewers showed a strong interest and audiences registered some peaks during the last stages, including in countries which are subject to recurrent decline such as Spain. On TV1, almost 2,7 million viewers followed the last high mountain stage in the Pyrenees, driven by the future Spanish winner. In France, where the audience results were stable compared to last year’s edition, the last stage of the Tour allowed France 2 to realize its best performance of a finish since 2004 with on average 4,6 million of viewers and 41% of market shares. Furthermore, in addition to stages such as the arrival on the Champs Elysees since 1975, the ascent of the Galibier or the Aubisque which have become real classics, the Tour continues its international extension with this year a prologue in London. The Tour is still one of the few programs that allows television channels to gather millions of viewers on summer afternoons. Several broadcasters appreciated it and took advantage from the event, providing themselves with an attractive offer during a historically weak period in terms of audience.

In France, France 2 attracted on average 3,6 million viewers and 39,2% of market share, which is much higher than its annual average for 2006. The Same situation occurred in Denmark, where TV2 obtained for the Tour an average market share of 59,2% (the channel has already obtained 65,3% of market share in 2006), gathering even 3 out of 4 viewers for the ascent of the Aubisque. Lastly, in Germany Eurosport took advantage of the withdrawal of ARD and ZDF and almost multiplied by 5 its average audience during the broadcasts of the Tour.