The Diminishing Tube

It wasn't that long ago that OLN-TV televised the entire Tour de France, Giro and Vuelta.

Those telecasts sparked my interest in cycling and resulted in making Trek Travel's first pilgrimage to the Tour de France in 2003, where I met my Crankset teammates.
OLN still blankets the Tour, although it won't have Our Boy Lance to follow around anymore.
That's probably just fine for the purists among us, who can point to any number of storylines to follow.

In fact, the Crankset will probably be cranking out lots of Tour speculation over the next month or so as we fire up for start of the Tour July 1 with a 7.1km time trial in Strasbourg.

Americans aren't the only ones who are suffering from a lack of blanket coverage of all three major stage races and the pro tour. According to an article by Matt Seaton in the London Guardian, "To get the Tour highlights these days, you either have to subscribe to Eurosport or watch ITV2 at dead of night. Only if you have satellite TV in North America can you get C4's old team of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen "in exile" for Canada's Outdoor Life Network."

Sorry, Matt, but except for "Cyclism Sunday," it ain't much better here. This Sunday, for instance, we'll get live coverage of the "who cares?" (but triumphant) final stage of the Giro, when what we really want is Wednesday's difficult 17th stage.

Adds Seaton:
"Given cycling's resurgent popularity, terrestrial and freeview broadcasters may be missing a trick by virtually ignoring the Tour de France. But even more frustrating and inexplicable to the cycling tifosi (fanbase) is the apparent media ban on the Tour of Italy -- the Giro d'Italia.

"But you will hunt in vain to find any trace of what the Giro has to offer in the sports pages (including in this paper). Is it merely a case of special pleading to ask whether the reams of copy devoted to, say, the playoff for premiership promotion might be just a little myopic and insular?"

OLN offers online coverage of the Giro, of course, for about $20, but the online screen is no more the TV screen than the TV screen is the big movie screen. That experience will only continue to improve, but right now, it's not my preferred avenue for video.

So, at a time when the pro tour may be more exciting and interesting than it has been in years, we get less coverage on television.

A sad state of affairs, as Seaton concludes.