During the final few wet kilometres of this year’s Tour de France in Paris, Ned Boulting’s phone must have assumed that something was horribly wrong, due to the seemingly endless barrage of social media notifications popping up on its home screen.
As the sport’s biggest race faded from free-to-air television in the UK, fans rushed to their favourite platforms to pay tribute to ITV’s almost two and a half decades of Tour coverage, and mourn the loss of a British cycling institution.
On Sunday afternoon, however, on the similarly sodden streets of Cardiff, Boulting’s timeline (and that of the poor ITV cycling social media manager) was blowing up once again. But this time, for entirely different reasons.
Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com
Because, as we approached the final 25km of yesterday’s sixth and final stage of the Tour of Britain – and the final 25km of Geraint Thomas’s cycling career – commentator Marty MacDonald leaned into the microphone to quietly tell us that, ahem, ITV4’s coverage of the race was about to abruptly end.
Why? Because some horse racing, namely the final round of the Sky Bet Sunday Series from York, was due to start.
And if, for some weird reason, you were looking to catch the end of a race hanging in the balance, and to witness a part of British cycling history, viewers were instructed to load up the always reliably ITVX app.
Cue Boulting’s phone buzzing with frustration.
“Here’s something I didn’t expect to say – shocking coverage from ITV Cycling,” wrote Mac on Twitter. “Moving the last 20 minutes of coverage of the Tour of Britain from ITV4 to ITVX, why????”
“Which idiot in your organisation thought it would be a good idea to take the Tour of Britain off ITV4 for the last 20km and put it on ITVX, absolute muppets,” asked a fuming Stuart. “I was enjoying the race and coverage.”
“Thanks a lot ITV,” added James Webb. “I’d watched every live stage of the Tour of Britain until you decided to move the last 30 mins to ITVX. Couldn’t get the app to load, by the time I got the livestream they were practically in final sprint. Ruined it. Why change for the last 30 minutes?!?”
And Dave Newton was even angrier: “Cover every minute of every stage of the Tour of Britain except the most important last 15km just to switch to a bang average horse race.
“Total disrespect to the viewers and especially Geraint Thomas. Utter incompetence.”
“After excellent coverage all week, today of all days they decided to cut off the coverage just before the end,” added Tony. “They have three other channels that could have shown the coverage but repeats of films and shows are more important. Total disregard for live sport.”
“ITV dumping the last 20km of the final stage of the Tour of Britain onto ITVX is rather pathetic,” wrote Jonny.
Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com
Meanwhile, others were dismayed that Geraint Thomas’s big moment, as he called time on his illustrious career in front of an adoring home crowd, was ignored.
“Fantastic move from ITV moving the Tour of Britain finale to ITVX with no prior warning,” a sarcastic Marina Gange applauded.
“It’s just one of our nation’s greatest sportspeople and Olympians finishing his career in his home race. Not important clearly. No wonder you lost the Tour, rank amateurs.”
Ouch.
And Tony Coleman said: “ITV’s devotion to the Sunday Series about to get a backlash? Shunting the closing kms of the Tour of Britain and Geraint Thomas’s retirement (which they’ve been talking about all week) on to ITVX is the most bizarre decision.”
“A big well done to the arses at ITV, who decided to move the last few hours of Tour of Britain cycling to ITVX instead of maybe moving it to ITV1,” wrote Pip. “Give it the coverage it bloody deserves. Push the knife deeper by ending the show without showing Geraint Thomas speech. Nice one.”
“So… the final day of the Tour of Britain, Geraint Thomas’s final day in the saddle following a truly epic career and neither ITV nor TNT have his final pedal strokes live. a GB race, GB cyclist, GB channels, and nope, not on. Shame on you both (and you know what you can do with ITVX).”
And finally, Charlie Pittock said: “ITV cutting off Tour of Britain coverage in final 30 minutes of our last British TdF winner’s career. It’s no wonder cycling’s dying in this country.”
Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com
For his part, Boulting – although I’m sure he wasn’t in charge of the scheduling – took to his Substack to apologise for the abrupt end to a week of otherwise great coverage of Britain’s biggest bike race.
“Worth saying that the final stage ended badly for ITV’s coverage,” he wrote. “The network, overwhelmed by live sport commitments, opted to pull the race from ITV4 before its conclusion, because of horse racing.
“Though it continued to be broadcast on ITVX, not enough warning or explanation was given, and it left people confused and cross, which is entirely understandable.
“As a result, my timeline which I am accustomed to being a safe space, has become a receptacle for frustration, into which I have been assiduously copied. All I can say to you all is sorry.”
Meanwhile, over at TNT Towers, everyone in the PR department is breathing a sigh of relief that it’s not them on the receiving end of a social media pile on from cycling fans for a change…