shouldn't the bike manufactuers start a cycling channel ?

just wondering, we are all expecting fools at oln to give us racing
coverage, but they never will. so, lets try to get the bike industry to
start a cycling channel. it shouldn't cost too much especially if the cost
is collectively shared and they could expect a boost in revenues as coverage
should lead to greater interest and acceptance of the sport, increasing
advertising and team sponsorship.

thoughts ?

Laz

Yeah that makes about as much sense as a car maker to start making
vaccuum cleaners.

Bike manufacturers make bikes, not TV stations.

Get over it. Cycling is, and always will be a fringe sport in
America. We have the internet. You can read coverage of just about
every race in the world somewhere.

Running TV stations is expensive, and aren't companies in it to MAKE
money, not shell it out on useless wasteful projects? Yes, yes
indeed they are.

Tom

Laz wrote:
just wondering, we are all expecting fools at oln to give us racing
coverage, but they never will. so, lets try to get the bike industry to
start a cycling channel. it shouldn't cost too much especially if the cost
is collectively shared and they could expect a boost in revenues as coverage
should lead to greater interest and acceptance of the sport, increasing
advertising and team sponsorship.

thoughts ?




Goddamm, that is stupid.

The market has spoken. Only the TdF and a few other classics attract
enough viewers.


thanks,

K. Gringioni.

Kurgan Gringioni wrote:
Laz wrote:
just wondering, we are all expecting fools at oln to give us racing
coverage, but they never will. so, lets try to get the bike industry to
start a cycling channel. it shouldn't cost too much especially if the cost
is collectively shared and they could expect a boost in revenues as coverage
should lead to greater interest and acceptance of the sport, increasing
advertising and team sponsorship.

thoughts ?


Goddamm, that is stupid.

The market has spoken. Only the TdF and a few other classics attract
enough viewers.


thanks,

K. Gringioni.

Prediction for '06 - If Lance doesn't race, Tour coverage will be one
hour highlight shows Sat and Sun shown once each day - non prime time.

The folks at OLN are not fools. They took a channel that had a very
limited audience and figured out a way to attract another (completely
different) audience and significantly boost their ratings overall.
Before the Tour, they were pretty much just showing repeats in July to
an audience that was mostly all away on vacation. By August, their
normal audience is starved for Bassmasters and that boosts their August
ratings. The TV industry should give OLN's CEO an award for good
thinking.

And you benefitted too. They gave you first-rate, live coverage that
you've NEVER seen before in the USA. Feel lucky that you even got any
Vuelta and Giro coverage at all, because those were also firsts in the
USA. CBS, NBC, ABC, ESPN...None of them ever covered the Giro or
Vuelta, not even in delayed broadcast.

Besides: America is a land of fat-asses. The only thing they can
generally appreciate about bike racing is that it's tough, and the Tour
adequately reminds them of that every year. America is getting its
fill already. As Kurgan said: The market has spoken already. OLN is
a channel that almost no one watched before they carried the Tour. For
a channel like them to drop a cycling event because of poor ratings is
really saying something.

Laz, that's an interesting idea, notwithstanding the ****brain
responses that have been posted. The bike companies would not, of
course, operate such a channel, they would only put up the $$ to back
it. The cost would be extremely low, since 95% of the programming
would be re-showing past races. Have you checked out cycling.tv? It is
a 24hr cycling channel on the web that covers road, cross, mtb,
interviews etc. As long as you have high speed net access, it serves
the purpose you describe. The only drawback is the reduced size of the
screen. It clearly gets its advertising funding from bike
manufacturers, shops, nutrition products, etc.

This crap about "the market has already spoken" is just that, crap.
That's like saying "don't going throwing new ideas into the
marketplace, people don't want it - after all, innovative, creative
ideas never catch on."

wrote:

This crap about "the market has already spoken" is just that, crap.
That's like saying "don't going throwing new ideas into the
marketplace, people don't want it - after all, innovative, creative
ideas never catch on."



****, you're stupid.

Why can't you watch the Vuelta right now? OLN has shown it in previous
years.

The reason is: OLN didn't get enough viewers, so they dropped it.

The market has spoken.

That may change in future years, when the net has enough bandwidth to
do webcasting in full screen resolution, but the OP's idea would not
fly with the current cable TV distribution system.


thanks,

K. Gringioni.

I volunteer you to be the venture capitalist to fund such a new
channel. Laz can be CEO.

With cycling.tv's stellar revenues as a projection model, you just
can't lose!

The problem with the deluded *******s on this usenet forum is that they
believe that EVERYONE loves to watch cycling. This is most definitely
NOT the case. Let's face it folks, most of us like to watch it, but
it's ****ing boring.. Nothing (aside from golf) will put me to sleep
faster than watching a 6 hour long Tour stage, or a 6 hour long
Classic.

Kurgan is right. The market HAS spoken. The market doesn't want it.

Now just go back to reading updates from Jeff on cyclingnews.com, and
you'll be good to go. Just forget about getting race coverage aside
from the Tour and some select classics. It just isn't going to happen
in the US. Bike companies would freakin' lose their investment money
if they dropped cash into this dumb ass idea.

Tom

wrote:
Laz, that's an interesting idea, notwithstanding the ****brain
responses that have been posted. The bike companies would not, of
course, operate such a channel, they would only put up the $$ to back
it. The cost would be extremely low, since 95% of the programming
would be re-showing past races. Have you checked out cycling.tv?

The TV channel has to pay the races for the right to show them.
cycling.tv presumably has to pay less for web rights, and even
then they don't show the biggest races. Then the TV channel
has to persuade cable companies to carry it. There are still
a limited number of cable channels. And most people beyond us
fanatics aren't going to spend a lot of time watching old races.

When bandwidth makes quality streaming TV realistic, or at least
as available as streaming radio is now, then special purpose
channels like this will probably spring up.

I don't know what the budget or capitalization of OLN is since
it is part of Comcast, but I bet it is significantly larger than
any US bike company. Bike companies are a marginal business.
Expecting them to underwrite a TV channel is unrealistic even
if the channel eventually turned a profit.