So, that’s it, then. No more free-to-air Tour de France television coverage in the United Kingdom, as Warner Bros. Discovery announce they have acquired exclusive UK broadcast rights for the biggest bike race on the planet from 2026.
Previously and originally, the Tour de France had been broadcast free-to-air in the UK since the 1980s, with Channel 4 and then ITV, before Eurosport began their coverage in 1991. In two years’ time, there will be only one.
Barring some extraordinary turnaround or ITV being happy to just show their beloved evening highlights show (a possibility), Warner Bros. Discovery (AKA Eurosport/Discovery+) will be the only place in the UK that will show the Tour de France from 2026 on their paid-for channel and online platforms.
Announcing in a slightly boastful manner their new “colossal” deal that will last until at least 2030, WBD have forked out for this UK exclusivity to add to its rights to show both Tours de France, both Vueltas and the Classics “further cementing WBD’s role as the Home of Cycling,” its press release reads.
Now, no shade is intended toward the very talented people who work on Eurosport’s coverage. They are good at what they do. For some (me), it may be a bit too shouty, too hyperbolic, too many predictions from commentary mid-stage. Others will be on the other side of the fence and found ITV’s coverage too … British, too parochial, except the vicar’s dog collar is replaced by an immaculate Gary Imlach Fred Perry polo shirt.
Pardon me, but no real Home, Cycling or otherwise, usually charges a fee to enter its threshold.
Sure, it’s not like WBD are the only huge corporation in this tale, which would make it easy to paint as a David vs. Goliath villain. ITV are a similarly massive broadcasting company. The difference is, however, that for many years the show was actually made by British production company Vsquared TV, which for decades employed the likes of Phil Liggett and Imlach, and more recently Ned Boulting and Daniel Friebe, every July in a sort of French-countryside-roving cottage industry bringing the Tour de France to the British public.
Quickly before we go any further, a declaration of interest: I worked on the ITV coverage during my teenage years and therefore (as already demonstrated) have a personal bias the size of Alpe d’Huez on my preference for British Tour coverage. But that doesn’t mean my opinions are wrong.
Here are a few things that were great about the ITV coverage that will now be lost.
There was real heart to it, a British bent that was necessary to get casual viewers to relate and then care, before unleashing upon their souls the personalities of your Thomas Voecklers and Peter Sagans. For a month of the year, friends who had no interest in cycling would tune in and you’d discuss down the pub or in your workplace who was going to win the yellow jersey or simply just how great France looked in July.
Then, the vignettes of cultural interlude broke up the rubber-on-tarmac action. Gary Imlach would introduce the top of the highlights show from a cafe with a copy of L’Équipe in hand, Matt Rendell would be dispatched to some church where something interesting and maybe horrific happened in the 14th century, and Chris Boardman would be filmed riding the last kilometre to show you what was coming up.
When a doping scandal reared its ugly head (or happened in the intervening months between two Tours), Imlach would bring more casual viewers up to speed within minutes of the stage 1 coverage, laying bear the grisly details, grey areas and unanswered questions. There was no pretence, there was no protecting the image of the sport, it was broadcast as is. And who can forget Friebe re-visiting the scene of the Festina doping scandal in ’98 and asking the proprietor of the cafe turned pizzeria where Richard Virenque broke down crying in front of the media whether he served Virenque tears-flavoured pizza.
Sure, paying for Discovery+ to watch uninterrupted coverage without adverts is good for the viewer, for those who don’t want to be inundated with adverts for donkey sanctuaries featuring footage of beleaguered and bloated mules, or for funeral home commercials where you’re just trying to enjoy a Wednesday afternoon skiving off work to watching the final 20 km of the stage. But it was all part of the fun.
And how long will we still be offered uninterrupted coverage at a semi-reasonable price now that WBD has a monopoly on the market? And more to the point of the economics of this decision, how will potential new fans discover the sport if they have to pay for it before they know they like it? There’s an argument to made that the free-to-air coverage was the perfect marketing tool to get people to sign-up for Eurosport subscriptions after they’d fallen in love with the sport via the Tour and wanted to follow along for the rest of the season.
(Yes, the irony of writing this on a member-funded website with a paywall is not lost on me. But TV and websites like ours play different roles in the media sphere, and we still keep as much of our content free as we can get away with. WBD doesn’t have the same mindset.)
When Cycling Weekly contacted ITV for comment on their plans for their Tour coverage from 2026, they declined to comment. It’s likely they don’t really know yet. Live free-to-air coverage on ITV is a fairly recent thing (when talking of an institution that has spanned decades and defined British Tour coverage). There is still probably an audience for a packaged highlights show in the evening. I’m not sure ITV will see that as a worthwhile endeavour, especially when they’ll have the 2026 FIFA World Cup to show in July. They may not be that bothered.
Regardless, we’ll still have 2025. Now, time to download the ITV Tour de France theme tune and set is my ringtone, for old-time’s sake.
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