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SBS VICELAND to screen La Vuelta a Espana live

21 stages to air Live, nightly, from mid August on SBS VICELAND.

SBS VICELAND is set to screen La Vuelta a Espana Live for the first time, in all its stages.

In the past SBS has aired select stages, but this year it will have nightly coverage from Saturday August 19th to Sunday September 10th.

SBS Director of Sport Ken Shipp said: “We made major enhancements to SBS’s Tour de France coverage this year, with an all-Australian commentary team, for the first time every moment of every stage available to viewers on our digital platforms, and an increased ‘video-first’ focus. It’s important as the broadcaster of such an iconic and much-loved event that we refresh our coverage regularly. It’s fantastic to see the cycling audience’s response this year, particularly with significant digital wins.”

La Vuelta is made up of 21 stages and covers a total distance of 3,297.7 kilometres. Beginning with a team time trial in the French city Nîmes, the elite international riders will work their way through the gruelling course across Spain to the finish line in Madrid.

This announcement of SBS’s increased cycling coverage comes as the biggest event in world cycling, the Tour de France, hits its final stages this weekend.

Online, daily video views for the Tour de France are up 61.2% on 2016, and so far there have been 2.2 million video streams served across all SBS platforms (including SBS On Demand, sbs.com.au and the ŠKODA Tour Tracker mobile app).*

On the ŠKODA Tour Tracker app, Unique Browsers are up 60.6% on 2016.**

The SBS Cycling Central Zwift Tour de France podcast, an irreverent and punchy look at the world of professional cycling has been recorded completely on-ground in France at the race for the first time. The podcast has achieved an impressive 5-star rating and is consistently in the top 3 ranking sport podcasts on iTunes.

On TV, ratings for the live stages of the Tour de France are up year on year by 7.1% (+18,000), with the nightly live stages delivering average audiences of 271,000 (metro + regional), with four stages of racing still remaining.***

Before La Vuelta a Espana begins, Australian cycling audiences can tune into the final stages of the Tour de France to see if our own Michael Matthews can hold on to the Green Jersey which is awarded to the best sprinter, and become the third ever Australian to claim that title.

Watch the dramatic conclusion of the Tour de France nightly on SBS, with the final stage as the riders roll onto the Champs-Élysées in Paris on Sunday 23 July, from 11.30pm AEST.

Times are yet to be announced.

4 Responses

  1. A very different race to the Tour….but I will enjoy watching…again for the scenery ….I like the cycling..but really …still …do not altogether understand it….

  2. I always find La Vuelta to be a bit of come down from Le Tour as many of the big names aren’t in it, having flogged themselves over the alps and pyrenees for 3 weeks.

    I should also give a shout out to whoever chooses the music for the post-ad break montages – an excellent and eclectic selection. We even got rickrolled last night.

  3. Takes SBS to show other fta networks how to use multi-channels in HD, well done I have been watching more of SBS because of this,Seven are you listening!!

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