UK fans tuning in for the opening stage of the Tour de France on TNT Sports have been surprised to find out that advert-free coverage of the race is only available via the broadcaster’s multi-screen feed and the standard single-screen feed is being punctuated by regular advert breaks.
Fans have reacted with fury, the TNT Sports’ social media posts about the race flooded with angry and disappointed comments from viewers paying £30.99-a-month to watch the race.
While previously, Discovery+ had an advert-free version of the standard race feed, that has now disappeared, meaning that viewers have the choice between the TNT Sports 1 TV feed with adverts, or the ‘quad screen’ multi-screen that does not go to advert breaks but the commentary cuts out at times when there is a commercial break on the other feed.
A TNT Sports spokesperson has confirmed to road.cc this afternoon that the quad screen is now the only advert-free feed.
Unsurprisingly, viewers paying the £30.99-a-month subscription to watch cycling have taken to social media to express their disgust at the news, many saying this is the final straw and that they will be cancelling their subscription.
On Facebook, John Maclennan wrote, “£30.99 a month and I can’t even watch the race without adverts! Final straw. Cancelling this rubbish.”
Lynsey Joyce agreed: “So annoying TNT Sports, why no full screen coverage without adverts? One of the biggest races. I don’t want to watch multi-screen! £30 to watch adverts… absolute joke.”
On Twitter, Dr Ronan Lee said he had reported the broadcaster to UK Advertising Standards, suggesting TNT Sports was “doing their best to ruin the TdF coverage by forcing ads on subscribers while advertising the ability to watch ‘all the live action’.”
Ahead of the Tour, TNT Sports’ message to viewers and the media was that the coverage would be taken to the “next level”, although news of the quad screen representing its only ad-free feed has come as a surprise to many today, plenty of viewers seeing it as a slap in the face having already stumped up £24 more than they previously paid per month back when Eurosport broadcast races last year.
On Twitter, a cycling fan named Emma wrote: “Yeah I’m not happy, thinking of cancelling as it was the only benefit over Itv4 whose coverage is superior in every other way.”
Ruth D added: “I hope it’s not like that the whole Tour. I don’t want to watch the multi or the ads.” She also suggested the new set-up makes it “inaccessible for disabled people who can’t have multi screens or flashing ads. Absolutely furious.”
TNT Sports has confirmed that this is going to be the case for the entire Tour de France.
David wrote: “Looking at the upcoming races, tomorrow’s female Giro has two streams. TNT Sports 2 and the plain TNT Sports feed. So it looks like it’s just the Tour that is having multi-screen forced on us (and it’s shocking, unwatchable!).”
Hels Bels said: “Yep, I’m furious. And that multi-screen is horrendous, they need to get rid of it and bring us an ad-free normal stream.”
Back on Facebook, Wendy Halsall commented under a TNT Sports post: “Why are we being made to watch adverts when we pay. I want to watch a whole screen, not multi screen. TNT has ruined cycling, bet they don’t put an advert in the middle of football.”
It is just the latest controversy since the announcement earlier this year that cycling coverage was moving to TNT Sports and Eurosport was closing in the UK and Ireland. This is the final summer of free-to-air coverage on ITV too, meaning that from next year TNT Sports will have exclusive rights to the race in the UK.
27 thoughts on ““£30 to watch adverts… absolute joke”: Cycling fans furious as TNT Sports scraps advert-free feed for Tour de France”
Enshittification in its
Enshittification in its purest form.
It doesn’t take much imagination to think that most of those adverts are for betting sites as well.
What, not donkeys, stairlifts
What, not donkeys, stairlifts and funeral subscriptions?
More likely, ‘hurry up and
More likely, ‘hurry up and die’ adverts imploring you to bequeath your worldly assets to their particular charidee.
The yearly anticipation of
The yearly anticipation of what strange sponsor they will get was given as quite a suprise being the deep pockets of Lloyds.
That was the Eurosport
That was the Eurosport demographic. TNT sports markets itself to the remnants of “lad culture”. It’ll be lager and betting ads, though the Cialis together might still be on the roster
I’d far sooner see lager and
I’d far sooner see lager and betting ads (even though I don’t drink lager and almost never bet) than those smug bastards advertising the E-Toro investment platform, which seems to have been the absolute staple, as in every ad break, since WBD took over.
That’s not investment, it’s
That’s not investment, it’s yet more betting with even less regulation.
Fair point.
Fair point.
Those adverts have their uses
Those adverts have their uses. I recently bought a stairlift for my pet rescue donkey.
Mr Blackbird wrote:
Yeah – people may mock but hauling your ass upstairs gets old fast. It’s a no-bray-ner.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone one cancelled their TNT subscription and they went bust.
If youd pay attention to what
If youd paid attention to what WBD have been doing lately, that’s been happening regardless
https://www.wbd.com/news/warner-bros-discovery-separate-two-leading-media-companies
That would be pocket chsnge
That would be pocket chsnge to TNT. They are a massive company. A few cycling fsns subs mean nothing to them. Which just makes it worse tbh.
ITV 4 anyone ?
ITV 4 anyone ?
Watched it yesterday. Pretty
Watched it yesterday. Pretty good coverage. I found most of the stage a bit dull though. Good to dip in and out before concentrating on the last 40K.
I’m watching it on ITV4 right
I’m watching it on ITV4 right now. And I know they don’t do ads for the last 10km
I tried on my fierestick and
I tried on my fierestick and despite the schedule saying it was on it gave me something else. The schedule also showed that ITV4 were slotting a half hour prgram in the middle of it :-/
I move the amount of time run
I move the amount of time run bar at the bottom past the adverts so I don’t see any of them.
Just glad that my head ruled
Just glad that my head ruled over my heart on this.
Haven’t watched any cycling since the classics and they were on dodgy feeds.
With you on that. Once
With you on that. Once Eurosport ended, I was done.
This is what happens when the
This is what happens when the Europeans sell out to big’yank’ville – they just don’t get the culture aspects of Europe
At this point its clear TNT
At this point its clear TNT have lost lots of cycling fans because of their dumb way of offering everything at 1 price .If tgey would let everyone pick what they want at a smaller amount they would be far better off .Everyone I know now has iptv services wether they like cycl8ng or not .Sky done this to sport ,its their model
Boulting, Millar and Deignan
Boulting, Millar and Deignan are starting a new free TdF coverage broadcast
A direct link to sign up if it’s of interest – https://neverstraysfar.com/
If the whole thing is not
If the whole thing is not annoying enough, TNT then go on and irk me more with their ‘back in a bit’ when they’ve run out of ads
HLaB wrote:
Chuck in also, for extra annoyance, the way they are padding the ad breaks with their own ads for how brilliant the Tour de France coverage is.
It was vastly better for us
It was vastly better for us race fans when we had GCN+. But we haven’t anymore. We don’t like the ads in our house, but you can always fast forward, go make a brew if it’s live. The coverage is nowhere near as good as it was with GCN+. But again, that doesn’t exist now. In our house, we’re getting a good couple of hours plus every evening of top level bike racing, which is most exciting. Roughly £1 a day. We’re not stressing out over that. Plenty of more important things to think about. Always best to vote with the wallet, take it or leave it🙂
Simon14 wrote:
That’s a pretty dangerous attitude, a private company has come in and bought up a service and instantly quadrupled its price and we’re just supposed to say “take it or leave it” without complaint? Admittedly Tour de France coverage isn’t one of life’s essentials (except for the likes of us) but this is exactly what has happened with so many other things in life as well, utilities prices, property rentals, train travel et cetera et cetera. The attitude that you should just suck it up and allow this sort of price gouging and either pay whatever’s demanded or go without lies at the heart of many of society’s current ills.