I just read about TV losing viewer numbers on the Tour de France Femmes races, here (in German).
For me, that doesn’t come as a surprise, really. And it’s *not* about missing interest in female sports, rather the opposite. Let me explain.
I already wrote to sportschau.de (which makes these TV shows for “Das Erste”), telling them the reasons why they’ve finally lost me as a viewer of the male Grand Tour(s). Those reasons are:
- They are only speaking about and interviewing German riders, which is really embarrassing
- They show minute-long documentaries about France during a race, which shows that they’ve completely lost focus – I suggested to outsource these into seperate documentaries for those who find this interesting
- They try to simultaneously translate anyone who doesn’t speak German – with the effect that you don’t understand the original *and* the more or less capable translator
- They have a very good guest commentator who used to be a pro racer himself – but he seldomly has time to add anything interesting because of no pauses from the main host
And during the TdFF I once turned on sportschau.de on my tablet during an ad break on Eurosport – whom did I have to watch? The commentators instead of the race.
Focus, people! Then you’d probably not lose that many viewers… it would be better for us all, and also for les femmes… who also think it’s a shame they’re not seen because there’s no full coverage. Blame is on ASO for this, more to it here.