Bike Channel is dedicated to cycling, published by Filmedia, a Filippo Mori Ubaldini company. The channel has been able to attract investors to a new way of talking about cycling on TV.
"The channel was founded in 2012 by the idea of some friends of cycling. The idea was to create a totally new dedicated to cycling channel. It has become a challenge to the market that, until then, had moved out of traditional paths, "says Filippo Ubaldini, CEO of Filmedia, the editing company. "We wanted to create a strong community of cycling enthusiasts."
Among the testimonials of the channel are former professional riders and former Rai commentators, as Paolo Savoldelli, Marco Saligari, Mirko Celestino, Massimo Boglia and Gianluca Giardini.
It's Bike Channel visible on 214 of Sky sat platform in Italy, which deals with cycling at 360 degrees, devoting space to both men's professional racers and women and amateurs. The channel success has not only proved the fact that new players believe in the "cycling product" and are investing, but also induced Filmedia, to export the project to other European countries, starting with the the United Kingdom.
"The Bike Channel team is a very lean team," adds Ubaldini. "In addition to the editor and management, restricted, the group consists of four key areas: programming and acquisitions, production (with more than 200 hours per year of production only in Italian), marketing and research, which includes the digital part and the activities on the territory, and sales force. In this team we add our Ambassadors and the "faces" of the channel, for Italy, among all Paolo Savoldelli and Filippa Lagerback. Bike UK, however, includes, in addition to the editor, a commercial team that is growing very quickly. All other areas are managed in synergy with the Italian team and a selected group of UK employees who joined us for the productions and in other key stages. In the UK we are building a network of Ambassadors, with figures like Ned Boulting and Mike Cotty".
Bike Channel is today a community, a reality, a real hub that includes TV, digital, social and local territory activities. Investors are partners, who have found the right environment to talk about the excellence of Italian industry in the world, with innovative solutions, from Branded contents to total Sponsorships.
Ubaldini continues: "Sky is our partner for excellence, both in Italy, with an exclusive agreement, both in England and helped us become a reference, also for quality of vision. Today we broadcast in HD and this means being able to deliver to those who follow us and our partner clients a unique quality."
The program schedule includes several live exclusive events, from Classic Flanders (Gent-Wevelgem, Scheldeprijs etc.) to the Tour de Romandie, Tour de Suisse and then the Tour of Utah, Tour of California, Vuelta Burgos, Tour of Britain, to name a few.
Among Bike Channel unique features, the care due to other disciplines as the Cyclocross, Triathlon, UCI and the world of mountain biking. Just as an example, in 2016 the channel created Mtb circuit races (Bike SuperSix) which include six events in Tuscany and Umbria. Then there are other on purpose productions: Great Climb, Bike Test, routes, cycle tourism programs and Reality.
Ubaldini adds: "At Bike Channel we are also making efforts in documenting the world of events on the Italian territory. In most cases we are present with Troupes, branded Trucks since we believe in the direct presence on the territory. The same programming model is growing also in the UK, although totally
reinterpreted and with its own codes of UK cycling."
"The ratings are in line with the positive trend of other channels of the satellite platform - with peaks that, during live broadcasts, lead us to share evaluated on a national basis." Taking into account the unique and special nature of our tv proposal, ours ratings are very high. We want to grow more and more, through acquisitions that will be addressed within international logics and reinforcing some of cycling issues covering an increasingly large slice of the public, such as tour-cycling. On this we are activating important partnerships, such as with the Italian Touring Club with whom we are already producing quality contents dedicated to trips by bike."
Mario Cavallini post and editing manager tells us: " We have three editors and two graphics operators engaged in four networked suites, working on Adobe Premiere for both editing and graphics. All workflow is in HD. We get the images files from a dedicated internal FTP, or WeTransfer. Mostly the programs commissioned to external services reach us completed and we only have to add graphics and the audio comment. Our post work is generally done on promos, highlights station breaks and alike, while audio commentary is added externally through a partner company in Milan. The material gets here in several formats so we have to apply the needed conversion and final delivery is in MXF OP1a."
