The Science of
Lance Armstrong DVD
is available from the
Discovery Channel
On-line Store.
[ Photo: Discovery Channel ]

Martin O'Donnell watches TV Cinq from France Television on Comcast in order to practice his French and keep up with what's going on there. The other day he asked:

Discovery Channel is getting massive publicity on French TV thanks to Lance Armstrong's team. How many Discovery networks are available to people in Europe? How important is Europe to Discovery Channel's cycling sponsorship strategy?

I looked into this and talked to a few friends in the pro cycling community and here's what I found:

• Discovery Channel networks are available in at least 14 countries in Europe and the Middle East including:
  • Belgium
  • Czech Republic
  • Germany
  • France
  • Italy
  • Hungary
  • Netherlands
  • Norway
  • Poland
  • Sweden
  • United Kingdom

• The Science of Lance Armstrong was recently aired as a "Watch with the World" event. It was broadcast to 160 countries in 35 languages.

• The Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team is the "most international" team on the Pro Tour circuit. They have riders from 15 different countries including the USA and Canada, several countries in western and eastern Europe, Russia, and the Ukraine.

• Discovery Communications was reportedly heavily involved in the signing of Fumi Beppu, a Team Discovery member from Japan. They probably feel that having a Japanese rider will be good for building public relations in Japan.
  

One of the points I made in Leblanc Made the Tour de France a Top International Television Event was that Discovery Communications wouldn't have chosen to sponsor a professional cycling team if the massive growth in international interest in the Tour de France hadn't happened over the past seven to 10 years. I think that Discovery and its co-sponsor AMD have benefitted a lot more from the media exposure that the team has generated this year than the team's previous sponsor, the U.S. Postal Service did during its sponsorship.

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