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Business of TV Sport
Sportel Monaco 2011

Spanish and German audiences the biggest climbers for Le Tour

Public-service broadcasters in Germany and Spain enjoyed big increases in their average audience for the Tour de France this year.
Audiences for Germany’s ARD and ZDF increased 24.6 per cent, vindicating their decision to almost double the number of hours of live coverage. ARD/ZDF have cut back coverage in recent years in protest at repeated doping scandals.

In Spain, audiences across RTVE’s free-to-air channels TVE1 and La2 and digital channel Teledeporte rose 23.1 per cent as Spanish rider Alberto Contador won his second Tour de France in a row, and his third in total.

For the full story and a wider survey of European TV audiences for this year’s Tour, see the upcoming issue of TV Sports Markets.