• by Wayne Friedman , July 17, 2008

As the Tour de France heads to more mountaintop stages, viewing has climbed--especially among young men--on cable network Versus, which airs the three-week cycling event.

The channel has seen a 16% gain in its cume number of viewers--those who have seen some part of the race over the first 10 days. Versus says that number is 20.8 million versus 17.9 million of a year ago.

But Versus also noted that its overall general household ratings for its live morning event haven't moved much--a Nielsen Media Research 0.3 rating versus the same number of a year ago.

The total average viewers for the live morning show were down 13% to 270,359. But the network notes that all its other shows (except for late-afternoon shows) have seen a rise in average number of viewers.

Versus also notes a big improvement in young male viewers 18-34--up 91% for the live morning show, 108% higher for its afternoon encore show at 2 p.m., 56% more for its 5 p.m. late fringe encore, with a 22% gain for its 8 p.m. prime-time show and up 99% for its 12 a.m. late-night encore.

This year's competition has been a wide-open, unpredictable race--with Australian Cadel Evans of the Silence-Lotto team, the pre-race favorite, now in the lead. Surprisingly, American Christian Vande Velde of the Garmin-Chipotle team is in a close third-place position, 38 seconds beyond Evans.

Last year, the Tour was plagued with a number of high-level expulsions due to positive performance-enhancing drug tests. So far, this year's event has ejected two lower-level athletes as a result of positive drug tests.

Versus.com has delivered 3.4 million videos so far--more than the entire 2007 Tour. The network is averaging 341,000 videos per day, compared to 170,000 in 2007.