Cycling TV - a niche model ?

Everyone has their own niche, or several, and Cycling is one of mine.

So I have mixed feelings about Cycling.tv which has just been sold to JumpTV for more than US$4 million, as reported on DTG.

On the one hand it is a model niche play. A strong and loyal interest group, poorly served in traditional media (outside Europe anyway) and a large industry of potential advertisers. It is often held up as a great success story for Narrowstep, the distribution platform.

But I've never subscribed to it, and nor have all but a tiny handful of my cycling friends - people who seem to spend most of their time either on-bike or on-line.

It's the subscription model that I have trouble with. I know it is nice to have a reliable income, especially as they have to acquire rights from sports organisers. But I'm just not going to part with $30 on the off chance I might have time to watch a live stream of Paris-Roubaix next summer. On the other hand I can think of half a dozen times I might have watched a report or a race and been exposed to advertising.

On some rough calculations Cycling.tv would have needed 40 million views in a year at a CPM of $40 to cover their costs, and that's not easy. On the subscription model they would have needed nearly 50,000 subscribers, and they had just under 20,000, so that wasn't a no-brainer either.

Maybe there's room for a mixture of subscriber and open content as there is in traditional television but I hope the steady increase in online advertising revenue will see more niche players able to support free access.