TDF Bingo 🏳️‍⚧️

#TDFbingo Something to keep Pete and Justin going between the feed zone and the intermediate sprint.

[TDF Bingo 🏳️‍⚧️ @TDFbingo]

Here we go! A bigger than usual #tdfbingo (for what I'm sure will be an underwhelming tour). A welcome return for the awkward Cav interview, the whimsical flâneur, and a couple of brand new ones.

[Daniel Lloyd @daniellloyd1]

This group of people, and their predecessors, have shaped cycling in the UK for decades.

Take a bow:
Ned Boulting
David Millar
Daniel Friebe
Gary Imlach
Matt Rendell
Pete Kennaugh
Alex Dowsett
Jacobo Guarnieri
+ anyone I've missed, the production team and everyone behind the scenes.

Thanks for getting so many people into this amazing sport. You'll be missed.

#TDFF2025

[ITV Cycling @itvcycling]

The Devil was born in 1952 and he's followed the Tour since the early 1990s 👹

Gary met Dieter 'Didi' Senft back in 1994 🎞️

[Matt Rendell @[email protected] @mrendell]

Did I mention that Einer Rubio, who's in the break, is a product of climate change? Two years of drought and failed harvests drove his family off the land to Bogotá, where he joined Esteban Chávez's Foundation. He is of Muysca indigenous heritage, a proud son of Bachué.

[TDF Bingo 🏳️‍⚧️ @TDFbingo]

@S4C Thank you!

[TDF Bingo 🏳️‍⚧️ @TDFbingo]

@S4C hi! Do you have live tour de france coverage anywhere today?

[S4C 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @S4C]

@TDFbingo Hi there, yes today's stage is live on S4C Clic: https://t.co/VzULX49I0j You'll need to register an account if you haven't used Clic before 👍

[TDF Bingo 🏳️‍⚧️ @TDFbingo]

@thesvelteone Thanks duck

[TDF Bingo 🏳️‍⚧️ @TDFbingo]

Where can I find the live S4C coverage today? #seiclo

[TDF Bingo 🏳️‍⚧️ @TDFbingo]

This was one of the excellent segments. Where will the broadcast cycling journalists go? https://t.co/J3P3baWKjL

[ITV Cycling @itvcycling]

"The riders themselves were told to be on message"

@mrendell on the Peruvian Amazon communities affected by TotalEnergies.

ITV respects TotalEnergies' right to reply.

[TDF Bingo 🏳️‍⚧️ @TDFbingo]

Watching the last @itvcycling rest day show. It's going to be a huge loss next year. The features, the journalism, the perfect tone of Gary Imlach come from years of experience and professional discipline. Truly the end of an era.

[TDF Bingo 🏳️‍⚧️ @TDFbingo]

This plus the doping has finally killed it for me for now

[TDF Bingo 🏳️‍⚧️ @TDFbingo]

I can't afford a x7 increase in subscription so I'm simply not going to watch cycling anymore. The other effect is that I just won't be taking part in the media / products around it either: podcasts, cute merch, etc

[Cillian Kelly @irishpeloton]

£370 a year now to watch cycling in the UK & Ireland.

It used to be £40 a year (and was actually £20 with an early bird offer).

I can understand WBD continuing to simplify the trail of logos they've been dragging around (Eurosport, D+, WBD, HBO, Max, TNT, GCN) but for the average cycling fan, they're just going to see the bottom line which is that this is a ten-fold increase to watch their favourite sport.

I can also understand some of the comments that young people don't really watch 'telly' anymore and that they'll find the sport now through YouTube and TikTok.

I have my doubts about this. I found the sport, as I;m sure a lot of people in the UK & Ireland did, because my Dad watched it on Channel 4 and back then, watching telly was a social thing, you watched what everyone else in the room was watching. Ironically now, social media, is not socialised, it's personalised. Feeds and the algorithm are personal. My kids are not going to see what I see. Are they going to watch over my shoulder while I scroll through my cycling-filled feed and wonder what it is I'm getting excited about? Are they fuck.

I don't think anyone has figured out properly yet how to present the sport to potential young fans on social media.

By miles, the highest engagement racing clips we used to get at GCN were crashes and silly stuff like when a dog ran across or someone celebrated too early. I fear that the algorithm will lead to a fetishisation of crashes over the actual interesting things in the sport which is more grown up than the bollocks and nonsense that ends up on social media feeds.

The actual interesting things are the history, geography, politics, geology, culture, gastronomy, rivalries, tactics, heartbreak... how do you convert those into soundbites for TikTok?

I'm not saying it's impossible. But if this is the actual future of broadcast cycling media, I don't think that lock has been picked successfully at all yet.

I will be very interested to see how it all unfolds this year.

[Chris Marshall-Bell @cmbreports]

You can put football behind an astronomical paywall because there's so many fans that a lot of people plus bars will pay for it. But put niche sports behind an astronomical paywall and you don't grow but *kill* a sport. Capitalism at its worst right here

[Phil Liggett @PhilLiggett]

Really saddened that ITV will not be able to show Le Tour after next year. Its history on ITV goes back almost 60 years when it started on London Weekend TV with David Saunders. Big thoughts to @millarmind and @nedboulting

[UK Cycling Expert @ukcyclingexpert]

A shame ITV won't be showing the Le Tour but I guess it was inevitable when British stars like Sir Wiggo, Thomas Geraint, Tony Martin and Mark Cavendish OBE started to retire.

ITV4 does have the rights to old episodes of Midsomer Murders and Minder, though, so it's not all bad.

[Chris Marshall-Bell @cmbreports]

*This*. Eurosport do a fantastic job of covering cycling, but there is a but: their paucity of trained journalists (except Orla) is a misstep. Riders-cum-pundits rarely speak to sources and provide valuable news like journalists. It's an unbalanced arrangement.

[Daniel Lloyd @daniellloyd1]

This is not good news for cycling in the UK.

Firstly, I'd like to say that there are a lot of passionate cycling fans working at WBD, in front of and behind the scenes. The company is automatically 'disliked' by a cohort of the general public because it's a huge international conglomerate, but Eurosport have been showcasing cycling since 1991. They have, and continue to do a hell of a lot for our sport.

On the flip side, exclusivity on the biggest race in the world, the ONLY race where non-cycling fans might tune is, is very worrying. It's a significant barrier to entry into what is already a relatively niche sport in the UK.

ITV not only do a fantastic job themselves of broadcasting the race, live and with easily accessible highlights, they provide a gateway to WBD. The fans they 'convert' each July are more likely to subscribe to Discovery+/Max/Eurosport once they've realised how amazing our sport is. They must have made lifelong cycling fans of millions of people over the last few decades (including me).

Anyway, I really feel for Ned, Dave, Pete, Matt, Daniel, Gary and all the others behind the ITV production - thank you for all you've done for the sport.

[Kuiper svelte @thesvelteone]

😕 No more free-to-air coverage of the Tour on ITV4 😣

[TDF Bingo 🏳️‍⚧️ @TDFbingo]

@itvcycling is it true there'll be no Tdf on ITV next year?