The Tour de France is still very popular and the French television broadcasting rights for this cycling race are now guaranteed up to 2013. The current contract with France Télévisions would end at the end of this year and in the current situation where the French government wants to make the public broadcasting corporations free of advertising the renewal of this contract was definitely at risk. This is thus good news for the Tour de France, for France Télévisions and even for people watching the Tour de France on TV abroad!

The Tour 2007 viewing figures

In 2007, the Tour de France's viewing figures were quite high with an average of 3,6 million viewers (39,2% market share) with peaks during the mountain stages (in the Alps with an average of 4,8 million viewers [48% market share] and an average of 4,3 million viewers [42% market share] for the Pyrenean stages) and during the last stage with over 4,6 million viewers (41% market share; the highest market share for a Tour arrival since 2004) and a real peak at 7 million viewers (56%) during the Champs-Élysées finish.
These figures are under the record viewing figures in 2004 and 2005, but stable compared to the Tour 2006.

The Tour de France thus remains the event which gives France 2 the highest viewing figures in July.
figures from Médiamétrie

The extension of the contract

In this context France Télévisions of course wanted to extend its contract with the Tour de France organisor, Amaury Sport Organisation (A.S.O.), for 5 years.

However, the positive viewing figures were not the only element in the contract extension: the French government plans to make public broadcasting corporations free of advertising, so A.S.O. was quite afraid this would lead to difficulties since it seems to be impossible to organise a Tour de France without any brands sponsoring the cycling event on TV since the cycling sport pretty much depends on advertising for its funding. Daniel Bilalian - France Télévisions director of sports - said We indeed had to reassure the Amaury group. In the negociations which were finalised Saturday night the most important element was that the public broadcasting corporations will keep the right to have specific programmes sponsored (like a "this programme is brought to you by" for example).
This indeed means that the Tour de France TV programme still can be sponsored by one or more companies, like it has been the case for the last few years with for example Cochonou (cf. the "Les pubs" section > "2004 : le cycliste" on their website).

Daniel Bilalian added I have tried to present the absence of advertising as something positive for the organisors of sports events. For the 90th edition of the French football championships for example I can use the break in the game to broadcast - instead of advertising - short programmes based on the archives of this event.

So this is definitely good news for the Tour de France because A.S.O. knows since several years that they can build on France Télévisions as the official broadcaster (when the German broadcasters stopped broadcasting the Tour de France this year due to the doping cases, France Télévisions continued to make sure the event could be broadcasted around the world), for France Télévisions since the public broadcasting corporation thus keeps the broadcasting rights of an event which brings them high viewing figures and even for TV viewers abroad since France Télévisions also provides the images for the international signal; this international signal is then sent to the foreign broadcasters by Orange and GlobeCast Reportages.

The contract: its price and contents

The contract not only covers the Tour de France's broadcasting rights, but also the rights for all other cycling races organised by A.S.O. up to 2013: Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix, la Flèche Wallone, Paris-Nice, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Criterium International, the Tour de l'Avenir, ... But also the Dakar if it'll still be organised in the upcoming years (the Dakar 2008 was cancelled just before its start due to terroristic threats), the Marathon de Paris and the Open de France (golf).

The total cost of these broadcasting rights is agreed on 23 million euros a year with a correction for inflation of 2% per year:
- 2009 : 23 M€
- 2010 : 23,4 M€
- 2011 : 23,9 M€
- 2012 : 24,4 M€
- 2013 : 24,9 M€

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Tour de France | Marketing

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