The ITV Tour de France commentary team fear the loss of free-to-air coverage of the race will have a “devastating effect” on the sport of cycling in the UK.
Last Friday, it was announced that Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of Eurosport, had signed an exclusive deal with ASO, the organisers of the Tour de France, to show the race in the UK.
The partnership will come into effect in 2026, and will mark the end of ITV’s 25 years of coverage, meaning viewers can no longer watch the race live for free.
Speaking on his podcast, Never Strays Far, ITV’s lead commentator Ned Boulting said he was “a little bit shaken up” by the news, which he only heard about on Friday.
“If I’m perfectly honest, It’s been coming. It’s not an entire surprise. I’ve seen the writing on the wall, and ultimately, if you step back and think about the economics of the way it works and everything, it’s not a huge surprise,” Boulting said.
“Obviously, though, we have one more year left: next year. Obviously, though, on a personal level, I am struggling to find the exact right words, but I’m a little bit shaken up by it because, it goes without saying, the race I’ve been fortunate enough, very privileged to get to know as well as I have done, for as long as I have done, feels like it’s moving away from me.”
Boulting’s co-commentator, four-time Tour stage winner David Millar, described the loss of free-to-air coverage as a “bummer”, saying that it casts “a much bigger, more permanent dark cloud over this decision”.
“For me and so many others, it was the free-to-air production, Channel 4 and then ITV, that really brought me into the Tour de France,” Millar said.
“I come from a family that wasn’t into cycling. It’s not something that somebody in my family would have had the Tour de France on, and I’d have seen it in passing and eventually got persuaded to come in. It was me that found it or stumbled across it on Channel 4 in the early 90s, and it just added a whole new level of colour.
“I think that counts for so many others, so many others, not just cyclists, but cycling fans. We know from our experience as well with ITV commentary that the reach it has, let’s be honest, far exceeds Eurosport in the sense that it is accessible.
“The majority of the people that watch the ITV Tour de France show, they don’t watch any other bike racing in the year. They also don’t want to just watch a pure racing show, they want to watch something that is inclusive, and goes a bit beyond the race, which is what the free-to-air has always done in the UK.”
Millar went on to say that he believes the loss of free-to-air television will “once again damage cycling in the UK”.
“Let’s be honest, it’s struggling at the moment, on all levels, and to have the Tour de France taken away from free-to-air means that the descending spiral that we appear to be in in the UK with regards road cycling is going to continue. It sucks for the kids like me who fell in love with this quirky sport, and they could just go and turn on a TV and watch it on their own. They didn’t need their parents to get a subscription.”
Speaking on the same podcast, Pete Kennaugh, one of ITV’s main Tour de France presenters, shared Millar’s opinion. “For cycling in the UK, for me, it’s a massive, massive step back,” he said.
“I think the fact of it not being free-to-watch anymore is going to have a devastating effect on the sport in the UK. You might not see it in a year’s time, two years’ time, but going forward, five years, 10 years, I think it will have a huge, huge impact. Even me going on the school run, you have parents, who you had no idea watch the Tour or are into cycling, talk about, ‘What a stage that was’ or, ‘Did you see his attack or that crash?’ It’s really, really sad.
“I don’t think it should be allowed to happen personally,” Kennaugh added.
