Strongest start ever for Tour de France on SBS

SBS’s coverage of the 99th edition of the Tour de France has had its strongest start on record, with both TV and online recording their highest figures for the opening five stages.

So far, 1.7 million Australians have tuned into the Tour de France on SBS, 12% more than at the same stage of the race in 2011.

The live stages of the Tour de France on SBS ONE have averaged 308,000 national viewers with an average share of 14.5%, the highest ever for the first five stages of the event. The live stages are currently tracking 11% higher than in 2011.

The SBS Tour de France website, has recorded its highest ever daily unique browsers for the first five stages of the Tour de France with an average of 52,000 per day. Daily unique browsers are tracking 30% higher than in 2011.

The SBS Tour de France Skoda Tour Tracker is currently the number 1 free iPad App and the number 1 free sport iPhone App, with an average rating of five stars. The Android version is currently the number 2 free sports app in the Google Play marketplace. So far this year, the SBS Tour de France Skoda Tour Tracker has had 181,000 downloads across all mobile platforms.

The Cycling Central Social Hub, which aggregates the best of social media chatter around the Tour de France incorporating Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, is also proving popular with over half a million page impressions since the Tour began. User sessions on the Social Hub are averaging almost 30 mins. The Cycling Central Social Hub is an innovation for SBS, being used for the first time during the Tour de France.

Says Ken Shipp, head of sport at SBS: “These ratings tell us what we already know, people love cycling and they want more. This is a great result for SBS.

“It is a core part of SBS’s mission to deliver quality content to audiences wherever they are, and the SBS Skoda Tour Tracker offers sport fans a distinctive and innovative mobile experience. This brings even greater value to our audiences, enabling them to further interact with the event and each other.”

Last year the Tour de France was the most watched program on SBS, reaching a total of 6.4 million viewers nationally.

Live coverage of the Tour de France continues on SBS each night at 10pm until July 22, with morning updates at 7:30am and daily highlights at 6:00pm. There will be two weekly review shows on Tuesday 10 July and Tuesday 17 July at 10pm on SBS ONE.