CBS Leaves U.S. Viewers With an Unguided Tour

An extravagant waste, the Europeans sneer, watching an American win the Tour de France for the third consecutive year.

In France, the final stage of the Tour is a virtual national holiday, a border-to-border party on par with our Super Bowl, except it is never crashed by Ray Lewis and the Backstreet Boys.

In Europe, the final stage of the Tour is a celebration of the conclusion of the world’s most grueling athletic competition, an annual event rivaled in prestige across the continent only by the Champions League soccer final.

In the United States, the final stage of the Tour is 3 1/2 minutes of filler used to pad out the CBS Sports Spectacular Lance Armstrong infomercial, which, in itself, is 60 minutes of filler between “Topspin” and the John Deere Classic.

You don’t deserve Armstrong, the Texas cancer survivor who Sunday became only the fifth man to win three consecutive Tour de France titles--that’s the prevailing view from Paris.

You are going to get one full hour of Armstrong and nothing but, even during the commercial breaks, because we know cycling won’t hold your attention for long, and we certainly don’t want to confuse you with multiple cyclists--that’s the prevailing view from the CBS offices in New York.

On this much, both parties agree: Americans are nothing more than fat, bloated idiots anesthetized on cheap beer, hypnotized by NASCAR left turns, with attention spans no longer than the amount of time it takes a major league pitcher to groove a slider to Cal Ripken.

And CBS has the 1.6 Nielsen rating from last Sunday to prove it.

So CBS views its Tour de France duty as some sort of public service--it’s supposed to be good for us, kind of like Brussels sprouts in pink Lycra--but it isn’t going to get carried away with it. Keep it short, keep it simple, keep the camera on Armstrong. The battle cry: All Lance, all the time.

Did you know that a rider in the Tour de France drinks an average of eight liters of water during each stage of the race?

Did you know that it takes an average of nine seconds for a Tour de France support-crew staffer to change a flat tire?

Did you know that it took Armstrong 23 days, 132,000 calories and 2,153,600 heartbeats to win the 2001 Tour de France? That last piece of information is brought to you by Nike, which featured Armstrong in two commercials during CBS’s hourlong Sunday telecast. Nike placed third on the Lance Armstrong Advertisement leaderboard, behind American General Financial Group and the U.S. Postal Service, which each aired commercials featuring Armstrong three times.

Bringing up the rear of the pack were AIM Funds and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, which each had its own Armstrong commercial, bringing the day’s total of Lance-For-Hire advertisements, including reruns, to 10.

There were commercials of Armstrong sleeping, Armstrong training, Armstrong flying like an eagle, Armstrong cradling his infant son Luke, Armstrong defiantly calling out his critics: “What am I on? I’m on my bike six hours a day. What are you on?”

In between these commercials was canned footage of Armstrong signing autographs, Armstrong churning his bicycle through the Alps, Armstrong glaring over his shoulder at laggard rivals, Armstrong pulling on the overall leader’s yellow jersey, Armstrong eating and drinking on his bike, Armstrong clasping hands with his chief competitor, Germany’s Jan Ullrich, as both riders neared the end of the 14th stage.

By the time CBS wrapped up its road-to-Paris foreshadowing, the actual final day’s ride to the finish was boiled down to 3 1/2 minutes.

CBS, immediately determining the Armstrong-Ullrich handshake to be the feel-good moment of the Tour, needed time to show the sportsmanlike gesture . . . replay it . . . and replay it . . . and replay it. Viewers got to see it four times, once in slow motion during the obligatory closing montage--”One last look at the shimmering tapestry that is the Tour de France,” as Armen Keteyian overplayed the intro.

Keteyian, a bulldog investigative reporter, strained for profundity as he stretched into the role of host/essayist: “But then came Aix-les-Bains to L’Alpe d’Huez, where the ties that bind the riders would be severed by forces of nature, an exalted trek into the clouds where the creme de Le Tour was expected to rise to the top.”

Under subdued lights, talking one on one with Armstrong during an interview segment, Keteyian was back in his element. On the eve of the Tour’s final stage, Keteyian asked Armstrong about the doping speculation that continues to hound him and his sport, provocative questions that yielded lively responses.

“I have the facts on my side,” Armstrong said. “That’s what [the critics] don’t know. What they have done is written the conclusion and tried to fill in the rest with a house of cards and with speculation and with innuendo.

“Look, our sport has been through a lot these last three years. I can understand how they’ve written that conclusion, but there are facts and evidence to support my case and our case and the sport’s case that have developed in the last two years and they have refused to look at that . . . Explain to me how we’ve passed so many tests if we’re so dirty.”

Armstrong noted that if he ever were to test positive, some in the international media would be “very happy. They would have a confirmation of all these thoughts and all the speculation.”

Armstrong set his jaw and glared at Keteyian.

“That,” he said, “is never going to happen.”

CBS had the good sense to share personnel with the Outdoor Life Network, which provided 17 days of live European-styled coverage of the Tour, which had to thrill the select few in this country who: a) consider themselves cycling enthusiasts, b) have heard of the Outdoor Life Network and c) have satellite-dish access to the Outdoor Life Network. But the British race-call team of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen, engaging as they dissected strategy and anticipated closing sprints for OLN, sounded overcooked when voicing over canned footage for CBS.

During a live call, Armstrong wears the leader’s yellow jersey and Ullrich is a physically imposing challenger.

Tape-delayed, Sherwen christened the jersey Armstrong’s “battle tunic” and described Ullrich as “a huge muscular carcass pulsing with energy.”

CBS knows better than that.

CBS--stands for Cuts Bicycling Short--knows that when it comes to the Tour de France and weekend ratings points, too much time to think isn’t always a good thing.