There's been a bit of debate recently about the coverage ofntriathlon on television this year now that Eurosport has decidednnot to include triathlon in its schedule. Anyonenfollowing the ongoing debate between the ITU and the ETU might benforgiven for thinking that it was all a lot of fuss about nothingnas the ITU have arranged for over 100 broadcasters to get material.nHowever, there's NO guarantee that any of these will give thenmaterial any airtime at all and, even if they give airtime, thenmajority of the coverage will be on minority channels. What do wenmean by a minority channel? Well, something like the BBC reaches anpotential 50 million homes in the UK while a minority broadcasternlike ON Digital hits perhaps 1 million homes... Even services likenSky with over 10 million subscribers are showing triathlon only onntheir Sports channels and not all subscribers take those. The ITUnfigures, quoted by Julia Micklewright, SSM's ITU Event Manager, arenthat they reach 400 million households in 100 countries. Me, I'dnrather have a guaranteed hour a month of the sort of coverage thatnEurosport used to provide than the occasional snipped buried deepnin a Transworld Sport compilation programme on Sky Sports 3 atn2am...

Thanks to Steven Downes for the mail on this, we've posted hisnfull message to the eGroup.