ITV 4 Confirm "Live" Vuelta Coverage

blazing_saddles
blazing_saddles Posts: 22,711
edited August 2011 in Pro race
The news all non-Sky bods have been a waitin' an a hopin' for:

http://www.touchline.tv/cycling/itv4-to ... r-of-spain

http://www.itv.com/itv4/
2 hours live each afternoon.

Taken from the Vuelta thread, but worthy of note for those who might not look there.

Those subscribing to British Eurosport have a sweetener, too.
The Tour of Colorado live on BE 2, usually 9pm for 2 hours.
http://tv.eurosport.co.uk/tvschedule.shtml
"Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.

Comments

  • rajMAN
    rajMAN Posts: 429
    I never ever, ever thought ITV would show the Vuelta. :shock:
  • durhamwasp
    durhamwasp Posts: 1,247
    Great news for British cycling fans!

    A good reason to tune into ITV4 for the tour and this, in the hope that they continue to expand their cycling coverage.

    To be fair theyve been good this year, Tour Series, British Roads, Tour de France, Chasing Legends and now the Vuelta.
    http://www.snookcycling.wordpress.com - Reports on Cingles du Mont Ventoux, Alpe D'Huez, Galibier, Izoard, Tourmalet, Paris-Roubaix Sportive & Tour of Flanders Sportive, Amstel Gold Xperience, Vosges, C2C, WOTR routes....
  • Cleat Eastwood
    Cleat Eastwood Posts: 7,508
    I knew my email would work. Yahoo great news.
    The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns
    momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.
  • LeicesterLad
    LeicesterLad Posts: 3,908
    Will there be a highlights package too?
    http://www.twitter.com/InTheGC http://www.InTheGC.com http://www.facebook.com/intheGC
  • Matt the Tester
    Matt the Tester Posts: 1,261
    i wouldnt be surprised leicester
    Coveryourcar.co.uk RT Tester
    north west of england.
  • afx237vi
    afx237vi Posts: 12,630
    LeicesterLad wrote:
    Will there be a highlights package too?

    The TV guide on the ITV4 website only goes up until the 20th, but there's 35 minutes scheduled starting from 7.55pm. It'll be pretty basic I reckon - I can't see ITV sending the full crew out to Spain for the same level of coverage they do for the Tour.

    The Vuelta might be a bit of a culture shock for those who've only ever see the Tour, too.
  • zammmmo
    zammmmo Posts: 315
    Excellent news - cheers. I'm sure many will be interested in Wiggo's performance.
  • LeicesterLad
    LeicesterLad Posts: 3,908
    afx237vi wrote:
    LeicesterLad wrote:
    Will there be a highlights package too?

    The TV guide on the ITV4 website only goes up until the 20th, but there's 35 minutes scheduled starting from 7.55pm. It'll be pretty basic I reckon - I can't see ITV sending the full crew out to Spain for the same level of coverage they do for the Tour.

    The Vuelta might be a bit of a culture shock for those who've only ever see the Tour, too.

    Pleased to hear that, its better than nothing, although ill still be watching on ES, will be very interesting to see the viewing figures for ITV though!
    http://www.twitter.com/InTheGC http://www.InTheGC.com http://www.facebook.com/intheGC
  • pst88
    pst88 Posts: 621
    The Vuelta might be a bit of a culture shock for those who've only ever see the Tour, too.
    Having never watched it before, why is that?[/quote]
    Bianchi Via Nirone Veloce/Centaur 2010
  • afx237vi
    afx237vi Posts: 12,630
    pst88 wrote:
    The Vuelta might be a bit of a culture shock for those who've only ever see the Tour, too.
    Having never watched it before, why is that?

    The lack of fans, mainly. You watch the Tour and people line the whole route, and you have the displays in the fields and the festive atmosphere in each town and everything else. On some stages in the Vuelta you can watch for half an hour and not see a single person. Once you get to the mountains there are lots of good crowds, but on the whole it's a very different atmosphere.

    The scenery is different too. The Tour is very green and verdant... the Vuelta is very... er... brown.

    Don't let me put you off, though, it's a good race. Last year was corker.
  • Tusher
    Tusher Posts: 2,762
    Excellent! Just hope the highlights package is as good as the Tour's- is a podcast too much to ask for, d'you think?
  • jerry3571
    jerry3571 Posts: 1,532
    Does that mean my own personal private habit of watching and sleeping through a flat Vuelta stage is going to be be more of a popular pastime??? Bugger!
    Even on some of the Mountain stages, the Vuelta seems to have only half a dozen foriegn fans at the finish and the proverbial dead dog in the ditch for company. Interesting to see if this lasts. All good if it does.
    This Stage below has great possibilities for a good "semi" afternoon snooze.
    (Must admit to riding my bike in this area a fair bit in the past and it's great for spring Training; big salt flats and long drags if your legs are up to it; done some Miguel Indurain spotting there too! :wink: )

    2_perfil.gif
    -Jerry
    “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”- Albert Einstein

    "You can't ride the Tour de France on mineral water."
    -Jacques Anquetil
  • SteveR_100Milers
    SteveR_100Milers Posts: 5,987
    zammmmo wrote:
    Excellent news - cheers. I'm sure many will be interested in Wiggo's performance.

    Indeed, let's see if there any hints that he is preparing to become Cav's b1tch.
    http://www.pontypoolrcc.co.uk/
    www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=44397853765
  • Gazzaputt
    Gazzaputt Posts: 3,227
    Big thanks to ITV for this.
  • squired
    squired Posts: 1,153
    I wonder if the fact that Wiggins (and Cav?) are taking part was enough to make it worthwhile to show on the basis that viewing figures might be half decent?

    Although I have Eurosport it is still fantastic news. Maybe we will one day have live coverage of all 3 grand tours on free tv.
  • mididoctors
    mididoctors Posts: 18,794
    nice
    "If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm
  • rubertoe
    rubertoe Posts: 3,994
    My email worked

    i new ned wouldnt let me down - whoop whoop
    "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."

    PX Kaffenback 2 = Work Horse
    B-Twin Alur 700 = Sundays and Hills
  • sonny73
    sonny73 Posts: 2,203
    squired wrote:
    Although I have Eurosport it is still fantastic news. Maybe we will one day have live coverage of all 3 grand tours on free tv.
    ITV currently have the rights to show all ASO races until 2013 I believe.
    But who knows if the viewing figures for the Vuelta are any good who's to say they won't approach RCS Sport about rights for the Giro.
    I too have ES but it would still be awesome to see all 3 GT's on terrestrial tv, it would also be great if ITV showed live Roubaix, LBL etc.
  • FJS
    FJS Posts: 4,820
    Bring on the Classics
  • sonny73
    sonny73 Posts: 2,203
    http://road.cc/content/news/40604-itv4-show-vuelta-live-bbc-air-only-brief-highlights-olympic-test-event
    ITV4 revealed that nearly 1 million viewers had tuned into the channel to watch Mark Cavendish win the green jersey in the Tour de France.
    From BARB you can see the Sunday viewing figures combined were 882,000:
    http://www.barb.co.uk/report/weeklyTopProgrammes?
    ITV4
    w/e 24 Jul 2011 000's
    1 TOUR DE FRANCE 2011 HIGHLIGHTS (WED 1900) 749
    2 TOUR DE FRANCE 2011 HIGHLIGHTS (FRI 1900) 711
    3 TOUR DE FRANCE 2011 HIGHLIGHTS (TUE 1900) 687
    4 TOUR DE FRANCE 2011 HIGHLIGHTS (THU 1901) 623
    5 FILM: JAWS (1975) (FRI 2151) 495
    6 TOUR DE FRANCE 2011 HIGHLIGHTS (SAT 1903) 444
    7 TOUR DE FRANCE 2011 HIGHLIGHTS (SUN 1905) 444
    8 TOUR DE FRANCE 2011 LIVE (SUN 1330) 438
    9 TOUR DE FRANCE 2011 HIGHLIGHTS (MON 1859) 382
    10 TOUR DE FRANCE 2011 LIVE (SAT 1400) 363
  • Gazzaputt
    Gazzaputt Posts: 3,227
    At this rate if ITV keep improving their cycling coverage I can bin my Virgin subscription.

    Save a bloody fortune.
  • derbygrimpeur
    derbygrimpeur Posts: 822
    fantastic news in my opinion. Hopefully it will get good viewing figures to encourage more cycling to be shown on TV.
  • El Imbatido
    El Imbatido Posts: 144
    I watch ITV coverage of the TDF even though i live in Aus. (through torrenting) and like it alot but all of their onscreen graphics and feature packages, TdF intro etc is done by a company called Mammoth Graphics. And this ain't gonna come cheap. Also Gary Imlach only seems to show up at TDF time (he is actually best known for his work with NFL). So my guess is that it will be presented more along the lines that the Tour of California this year was done. Ned Boulting and Matt Rendell in the studio and just using the ASO host feed with graphics etc provided by them.

    This way ITV can do it on the cheap and maybe i guess if interest is good in the next year or two they may show more racing live (P-R, RvV etc) and they might then pull out all the packages and graphics etc that make them so good.

    They may still have a highlights package but i wouldn't think it'll be of the standard of their TDF highlights. Also for commentary they will probably just use Matt Keenan official commentator of ASO as i am pretty sure the bumbling duo (dumb and dumber as some call them) will most likely be getting wallets filled commentating on commercials interrupted by cycling at the Tour of Colarado for the old Only Lance Network - Versus.

    So i wouldn't hold them to the high standard of their TdF work
    Do you have any Therapeutic Use Exemptions?
    No. Never have.
    Never? What about the cortisone?
    Well, obviously there was the cortisone
  • camerone
    camerone Posts: 1,232
    in my opinion Matt Rendell and Ned Boulting in a studio and no chuckle brothers commentating will be an improvement on TDF. ok so we lose the little features after the ads which I like but I enjoyed Rendell and his 'extraterrestrial' comments from Cali
  • derbygrimpeur
    derbygrimpeur Posts: 822
    Saw a tweet from Phil Liggett saying he's off somewhere or other this weekend (Colorado?) so we won't be subjected to him during the Vuelta.

    Rendell, Boulting and Boardman(?) would do for me.
  • derbygrimpeur
    derbygrimpeur Posts: 822
    ITV4 has confirmed Boulting & Rendell to host
  • sonny73
    sonny73 Posts: 2,203
    derbygrimpeur wrote:
    ITV4 has confirmed Boulting & Rendell to host
    Just hope they don't have that weird 1970's style studio backdrop they had during the Tour of Cali :wink:
  • ms_tree
    ms_tree Posts: 1,405
    Well I shall stay loyal to Eurosport especially as they are also showing the Vattenfalls Cyclassic and the USA Pro cycling challenge live next week.
    I was really impressed with Brismithy's co-commentary during the Eneco tour btw.
    'Google can bring back a hundred thousand answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.'
    Neil Gaiman

Categories