"Cycling will fall right next to biathlon and hockey in UK media landscape" - ITV’s lead cycling commentator lamments over harsh future after loss of broadcasting rights

Next year’s Tour de France will be the last one broadcasted on ITV. As the next arrival on Champs-Elysees will mark an end of free-to-air Tour in the UK, after it was announced last week that Warner Bros. Discovery and Eurosport have agreed a new exclusive TV rights deal for cycling’s biggest race from 2026 onwards.

"I was very disappointed, but I wasn’t particularly surprised," admits ITV’s lead cycling commentator Ned Boulting, speaking to road.cc Podcast. "But the problem is the inflation in the cost of television rights, and the Tour de France is no exception to that. So, it’s become less and less affordable for a free-to-air broadcaster like ITV who relies simply on eyeballs watching."

Who is to blame for this situation?

"It’s nobody’s fault," Boulting sighs sadly. "The ASO have a right to monetise their event as they feel fit, and you cannot blame Warner Brothers for wanting exclusivity. That’s their market. It seems quite strange to me that for a long time they were willing or contractually obliged to share the coverage with a much bigger broadcaster. Why would they allow that to persist?"

"And from ITV’s perspective, if they’re losing money, they’ve got to get out. So none of these three parties, in my opinion, are to blame. But the primary reason why it’s gone is because not enough of us cared."

"Forget all the other races, they may as well not exist. There’s only one that matters. Obviously, I love all the races in the calendar, but I’m deeply invested in it," Boulting realizes the one-dimensional view of the sport among British wider cycling audience. "For the general public, there's only one that matters. And that's gone now. That’s going to go into a place where, in the UK media landscape, you normally find biathlon and hockey," he assesses.