Discussion
https://www.globalcyclingnetwork.com/general/news/...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9xBGH-ISFU
Pro-rata refund from 19th Dec. Subscribe to Discovery+ at £6.99pm if you want live cycling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9xBGH-ISFU
Pro-rata refund from 19th Dec. Subscribe to Discovery+ at £6.99pm if you want live cycling.
It's quite sad, I enjoyed what they did. The GCN app will continue, just without the GCN+ content.
GCN+ worked with Eurosport for their feed so this may not have been foreseen that Eurosport basically appears to have sold the feed to Discovery+. Dunno, just speculating but it looks that way.
£6.99 is a lot more for those of us who only want to watch cycling - now we have to pay for other content we may have zero interest in. I don't.
I'll probably only subscribe for the months I want to watch the major races.
GCN+ worked with Eurosport for their feed so this may not have been foreseen that Eurosport basically appears to have sold the feed to Discovery+. Dunno, just speculating but it looks that way.
£6.99 is a lot more for those of us who only want to watch cycling - now we have to pay for other content we may have zero interest in. I don't.
I'll probably only subscribe for the months I want to watch the major races.
Harpoon said:
Extra question - does ES / D+ have advert free coverage like GCN+ did?
{Edit}
My GCN renewal in August this year was £40, so D+ will be £83 a year...
Yep, double the cost. {Edit}
My GCN renewal in August this year was £40, so D+ will be £83 a year...
Edited by Harpoon on Wednesday 15th November 13:05
I read that it is ad-free like GCN+ but annoying that we now have to pay for other sports too.
Edit to add: Discovery+ does have ads. Swines.
Edited by YorkshireStu on Wednesday 15th November 13:42
YorkshireStu said:
It's quite sad, I enjoyed what they did. The GCN app will continue, just without the GCN+ content
That’s not what their statement says. I suspect they want to drive all traffic to the website now. 
sir humphrey appleby said:
so are they closing the YouTube channel, with the training videos, general content then? I'm not too sure I follow what they actually mean.
No, they’re binning off the paid-for content. The YouTube channel basically is GCN, so closing that would be closing it all. YorkshireStu said:
Yep, double the cost.
I read that it is ad-free like GCN+ but annoying that we now have to pay for other sports too.
Edit to add: Discovery+ does have ads. Swines.
A couple of people on Twitter just said to me Discovery+ race coverage doesn't have adverts. I think the announcement could have had a lot more information, though even Dan Lloyd just said on Twitter they don't know what is going to happen to the documentaries and other non-race content. Somebody made half a decision somewhere.I read that it is ad-free like GCN+ but annoying that we now have to pay for other sports too.
Edit to add: Discovery+ does have ads. Swines.
Edited by YorkshireStu on Wednesday 15th November 13:42
I'm really disappointed in this, like many I can't really justify the £84 a year cost for discovery+ for the sports when all i want is cycling. I literally watch GCN+ every day. My particular loves are the cyclocross, and the one day classics, whilst my son loves the downhill and cross country mtb, all off which have no or very limited coverage on anything approaching free to air or other streaming sites, with very limited highlights on youtube. Seems all it is is a greedy decision by the parent company to try and boost subscriber numbers on Discovery.
GCN+ subscriber here from the beginning. Don't care much for the racing coverage but have thoroughly enjoyed their cycling documentaries; especially the travel based ones. I hope these, at least, continue! The team have blossomed and matured over the years with a strong following. Maybe a team for Amazon/Prime, maybe even Netflix to pick up?
I think that cycling (as a sport and a hobby/interest) is very different from other sports and this is why the pay for view does not work. Take football, 90min games that can easily fit in the weekend or midweek to watch your team (yes some do watch other matches in the same league as their team) around over life activities - cycling as a whole is at least half a day if it’s downhill racing or up to a week for the tours. Next the ratio of people active in the sport to just watching it is very different compared to pretty much all sports (maybe golf being the exception) - if the weathers nice i’m out riding and I may have tried to watch a catch-up of the racing later. Compare to boxing, it’s not a sport that is heavily bet on or people gather at home to watch and make a night of. Lastly it’s a sport that (at least for downhill, enduro, xc, road might be a bit different) you don’t pick a team or rider that you only support - makes a big difference in wanting/having to find out the results asap.
This all adds up to a poor viewing rating that will never increase.
This all adds up to a poor viewing rating that will never increase.
On the DH side of things, the UCI & WB/D have certainly made things worse. Introducing semi finals into the race weekend can have no point other than to increase the amount of televised racing. The effect of it is it takes seven hours or so now to plough through a race day from juniors, which wasn't previously shown to men's finals.
There was always something exciting in the one & done jeopardy of qualis & race, you either made it into the big show or you didn't. Now we have an additional layer of racing that eliminates a handful of slowcoaches & leaves the remainder cruising down the track with no real effort or penalty other than to risk their necks more often than they need.
There was always something exciting in the one & done jeopardy of qualis & race, you either made it into the big show or you didn't. Now we have an additional layer of racing that eliminates a handful of slowcoaches & leaves the remainder cruising down the track with no real effort or penalty other than to risk their necks more often than they need.
mattvanders said:
I think that cycling (as a sport and a hobby/interest) is very different from other sports and this is why the pay for view does not work. Take football, 90min games that can easily fit in the weekend or midweek to watch your team (yes some do watch other matches in the same league as their team) around over life activities - cycling as a whole is at least half a day if it’s downhill racing or up to a week for the tours. Next the ratio of people active in the sport to just watching it is very different compared to pretty much all sports (maybe golf being the exception) - if the weathers nice i’m out riding and I may have tried to watch a catch-up of the racing later. Compare to boxing, it’s not a sport that is heavily bet on or people gather at home to watch and make a night of. Lastly it’s a sport that (at least for downhill, enduro, xc, road might be a bit different) you don’t pick a team or rider that you only support - makes a big difference in wanting/having to find out the results asap.
This all adds up to a poor viewing rating that will never increase.
It's not pay-per-view, it's monthly subscription. Always has been. This all adds up to a poor viewing rating that will never increase.
I agree that it isn't nearly as widely supported as a viewing sport compared to football, rugby, golf and tennis on a regular weekly basis but it still has a huge international following and GCN+ and now Disc+ show every major race and even many minor ones now.
Countries where it is a religion; Belgium, for example, have a massive following.
The reason GCN+ collapsed is mainly because Warner now owns all the feed rights following a merger with Discovery+. The bean-counters scrapped all the smaller channels to force everyone onto Discovery+ or Eurosport, depending where you live - this is more profitable for them because they lump it with other sports and charge more plus adverts.
What GCN+ showed is not changing on Disc+. Same content, same amount, same presenters. It isn't being reduced because of a lack of viewers, it is staying the same. This is just a move by Warner to maximise profits.
As far as who we support, we do have favourites. We do support Teams and individual riders. I don't follow Enduro or DH at all but XC I support Tom Pidcock, for example. Looking forward to Peter Sagan's 2024 year in XC. Nuno Schurter. For road I support Quickstep and UAE mainly. Individual riders, Pogacar, Remco.
I manage to do 2-3 hours of riding every day while following a 3 week Grand Tour - not highlights, the racing feed only starts midday.
Edit to add: The Tour de France had over 3.5 BILLION viewers last year Worldwide. As a single sporting event, that's second only to the Football World Cup and more than the Euro Final, more than any other sporting final.
Road cycling gets the vast majority of viewers, track, cyclocross and MTB XCO racing less so but still a lot. Enduro and DH are much lower.
Edited by YorkshireStu on Monday 20th November 11:48
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