First, anyone who thinks the Tour de France is worth watching only when Lance Armstrong is breaking records (or could fail) is missing a heck of a good show. Ditto for anyone who only follows one rider and doesn’t watch when that cyclist doesn’t race. Between the expected drop-off from Armstrong’s retirement and the doping scandal that took several high-profile Europeans out of the mix, ratings are down. (The NYT has a good piece about the ratings.) So far, the nearest exception was primetime this past Thursday when the astonishing comeback of Floyd Landis drew OLN within 3 percent of last year’s Lance-ified number. But how does this premiere niche event fare online? It’s not available live online in the U.S., a product of Comcast-owned OLN’s policy not to compete directly with its cable and satellite affiliates by airing live events concurrently with broadband. But OLNTV.com has expanded its online video to include more elements and more highlights that can be viewed as single videos or queued in OLN’s new branded player Flash player with commercials. The result: so far, about two million streams served. (The number might be pumped up a little by the relatively small length of most of the clips.) At the same time, OLN is on pace for 20 million pageviews during the Tour, tracking about 23 percent ahead of last year.
— Bonus link: CNET Marketwatch’s Bambi Francisco kept a video blog of her vacation ride across some of the race route, helmet cam and all. (Thanks, Peter, for catching that.)
— YHOO-OLN Deal Goes Beyond Hockey; Includes Tour de France, More
Subscriber content
?
Subscriber content comes from Gigaom Research, bridging the gap between breaking news and long-tail research. Visit any of our reports to learn more and subscribe.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments have been disabled for this post