German public broadcaster ARD has confirmed that it will recommence live coverage of the Tour de France this year following a 3-year break.
ARD’s main channel Das Erste will follow the race daily between 16.05 and 17.25 CET from July 4 to July 26, 2015.
Following several doping incidents, ARD and fellow public broadcaster ZDF dropped their live coverage of the Tour de France in 2012.
ARD has now decided to push ahead, but in a cautious way: The broadcaster has acquired the rights for only one two years, paying less than €5 million, reports German news magazine Der Spiegel with reference to ARD circles.
For the rights between 2009 and 2011, ARD and ZDF apparently paid around €20 million. Both decreasing ratings and the doping incidents have pushed the prices down.
According to the report, the rights contract contains a doping clause, like it is now the case in most sports rights deals, allowing the channel an immediate pull-out in the case of new occurrences.
Like in previous years, commercial sports channel Eurosport will also show the Tour de France live on German TV screens.
