TNT Sports claims it set a “new benchmark” for its cycling viewership at this year’s Tour de France, following the news that the broadcaster’s average audience increased by over half at the 2026 race, the first to be exclusively broadcast live on the channel.
According to a report published this week by Warner Bros. Discovery, TNT’s parent company, the 2026 Tour (won by Tadej Pogačar, for a fifth time) saw a “record number of viewers” across the broadcaster’s streaming, television, and digital platforms.
In the UK and Ireland, TNT Sports said its live Tour coverage grew by 58 per cent compared to 2025, the last year the channel shared the rights to the race with ITV4.
Meanwhile, its daily highlights show on Channel 5, the only Tour coverage to be broadcast on free-to-air television in the UK, attracted an average of 557,400 viewers per stage.
The programme, which aired at 8pm every night on Channel 5, was hosted by Rebecca Charlton, but unlike the broadcaster’s previous free-to-air grand tour highlights shows on Quest or DMAX, it did not incorporate studio punditry or elements of ‘The Breakaway’ post-stage show.
Warner Bros. Discovery has not responded to requests to release its full figures, but says its coverage “reached millions of viewers” in the UK and Ireland. The company’s streaming platform HBO Max also saw a 22 per cent growth in its audience, making the UK the largest market for viewing subscribers.
Total hours viewed on the service were also up five per cent, as the numbers streaming the Tour on HBO Max across all its European markets increased by eight per cent.
Eurosport 1’s pan-European linear coverage also grew by nine per cent despite, WBD says, “wider industry decline in television consumption”, as France, Spain, and the Netherlands all reported record linear audiences.
> TNT’s impressive investment in cycling doesn’t hide the sport’s increasing inaccessibility
Earlier this month, WBD and TNT Sports hailed the increase in their viewing figures as evidence of the “continued momentum behind its cycling coverage”, following criticism of the platform’s subscription costs in the wake of its exclusive rights deal with the Tour.
The 2026 Tour de France was the first edition of the race for over three decades to have no free-to-air live coverage, after ITV lost its broadcasting rights and WBD signed an exclusivity deal until at least 2030, leading to concerns about the future visibility and accessibility of the sport in the UK.
TNT, which took over broadcasting cycling following the closure of Eurosport in the UK, was also criticised for removing its ad-free cycling stream shortly before last year’s Tour de France, and dramatically hiking its prices.
Now accessed through the HBO Max streaming service, a TNT subscription is £30.99 per month, though customers now have the option of paying £311 upfront to bring that down to £25.99 per month.
Warner Bros. Discovery Vice President Scott Young defended the new prices in May, saying that the folding of cycling into TNT’s larger sports portfolio meant it was possible for “football fans to discover how great the Giro is”, and that the £30 per month package represented “genuine value”.
> Loss of ITV Tour de France coverage “a shame” before UK Grand Départ, says TNT Sports pundit
And while the company may view a 58 per cent jump in its audience as a success, has TNT’s exclusive Tour deal, in reality, led to a drop in viewership as feared? Without the channel releasing its raw figures, it’s hard to say.
According to Ned Boulting, the opening stage of the 2025 Tour was watched live on ITV4 by 600,000 people. Meanwhile, BroadcastNow reported that the free-to-air channel’s highlights show for stage 10 last year, a mountainous stage won by British rider Simon Yates, attracted over 420,000 viewers.
In that context, Channel 5’s average audience of 557,400 for each stage appears impressive. Behind the paywall on TNT, however, the picture is less clear.
According to audience measurement organisation Barb, TNT Sports 1 reached just over 1.5 million viewers in total in July 2025 across all its programmes. Obviously, a fraction of that number – we’re unsure how big – watched the Tour on the channel, with that fraction increasing by 58 per cent this year, WBD says. Whether that was enough to fill the void left by ITV4’s withdrawal is currently unclear.
What is clear, however, is that the UK’s Tour audience is considerably lower than it was during the heady days of British success in the 2010s.
Archive data from Barb shows the highlights programme in 2018 consistently achieved nearly a million viewers in the final week when the race was won by Geraint Thomas. In 2012, the first highlights programme of the race averaged around 700,000, peaking at 960,000 in the final week when Bradley Wiggins became the first British winner of the race.
Since then, British success in the Tour de France and the popularity of linear television has declined, making a proper comparison difficult.
However, a source told road.cc this month that the highlights programme for Mark Cavendish’s 35th stage win exceeded one million viewers. Nevertheless, declining viewership was a factor in ITV’s decision not to bid for broadcasting rights in 2026 and beyond.
So, has TNT Sports’ exclusive Tour coverage proved a success? For TNT, certainly, based on this week’s figures. For cycling in the UK? We’re not so sure.
