Good that the BBC uses its own ‘news’ and analysis resources to once again promote its case for maintaining the licence fee and its privileged, pre-eminent position…
Free-to-air broadcasters around the world are finding it tougher to afford the spiralling costs of sports rights at a time of mounting competition and demand from pay TV. In the UK, the emergence of BT Sport as a true challenger to Sky has pushed up the value of rights.
Sport has become one of the few remaining ways of offering must-see content in today’s fragmented, multi-media environment, enabling broadcasters and advertisers to reach significant audiences. It is the ideal way for media companies to drive subscriptions towards other related services such as broadband and phone lines. The result is inflation. As recently as the 1970s, the BBC was able to pay just £5,000 for each rugby international it showed live. Those days have long gone.
Many worry about sport’s migration towards pay TV. They argue the country’s biggest sporting moments are cultural events, like a royal wedding or Last Night of the Proms, and should, by their very nature, be available to as many people as possible.
Sport, by this logic, ultimately belongs to us all. The concern is that taking sports away from free-to-air platforms invariably means smaller audiences, a lack of visibility and the removal of a crucial source of inspiration for young people who don’t happen to have parents who can afford pay TV.
The BBC has its supporters though…
It is instructive that in the wake of the Six Nations deal, Clive Efford MP, Labour’s shadow minister for sport, said: “In the face of significant cuts to the BBC’s budget this sort of partnership between broadcasters may be the only way that major sports events will be shown on free-to-air TV.”
The BBC wants more sport to be handed to it on a plate…
But as well as more collaborations between rival networks, another result of this will be a renewed debate around regulation, and the list of ‘crown-jewel’ events the government ensures must be shown on free-to-air television. Currently, only the Olympics and Paralympics, football’s World Cup, European Championship and FA Cup final, the Grand National, the Derby, Wimbledon singles finals, the rugby league Challenge Cup final and the Rugby World Cup final must be broadcast on free-to-air TV.
But at a time when terrestrial broadcasters are under unprecedented pressure over the cost of sports rights, some would now like the government to step in and help by having a longer list.
A clue as to what sticks in the BBC’s throat…..
For some, Australia provides a sound example. There, much to Rupert Murdoch’s annoyance, 1300 sports events – including Test cricket – appear on an ‘anti-siphoning list’, which must be offered first to free-to-air networks.
The government must do what the BBC wants…
New Sports Minister Tracey Crouch is working on a landmark new sports strategy for the UK, designed to tackle falling participation rates……perhaps Crouch should also look at the way sport is delivered to us, via a broadcasting environment that is changing before our very eyes.
And then what? Fix it so that the BBC gets the ‘Crown Jewels’?
All that’s missing from this bit of special pleading is an explicit final plea for you, the Public, to contact your MP and push the BBC’s case for them…..I imagine though that is what is expected of you,that being the whole point of this ‘analysis’.
If the argument is that vast swathes of the country can’t or won’t watch sport that isn’t on the BBC, then surely any reasonably competent sporting body would be offering a huge discount on rights with a view to the long term. It’s an argument that’s been massive in boxing over the last few years since most big bouts went to Sky. Groves v froch pulled 80,000 at Wembley last year and could have sold three times that so it’s clearly not doing too badly.
for vast international competitions in which the home nations compete (World cups and that’s it) there’s an argument that the National Broadcaster should be involved. Nothing else.
I have some sympathy for this view. Being an F1 fan, the only way to watch all the F1 I want is to subscribe to SKY, which I do and the coverage is superb. But the downside is that fewer people watching means advertising revenue for the teams will decrease and this is now causing problems for F1.
The popularity of F1 is waning in the UK, and I wonder how much of that is down to the BBC not being able to afford to cover it all live, like they used to?
What if Sky or BT showed some of these national sporting events on their free to air channels? Would that count as public service broadcasting? Would that entitle them to a share of the licence fee and a consequent reduction in the BBC’s share? There are maybe a dozen sporting events of truly national importance and which should be available to everyone. If the BBC want to show additional sport they should operate their own subscription channel.
The football coverage on Sky is second to none. Class from top to bottom and puts so I’m happy to pay my subscription every month but of course it is my CHOICE whereas with the bbc I am forced to pay.
A disgrace that it looked like the Cons were going to fix but just another letdown
Except that free to air platforms are not free because if you want to use them you have to stump up £145.50 a year.
True. But it’s even worse than that: you have to stump up £145.50 for the BBC channels even if you don’t want to use them.
‘New Sports Minister Tracey Crouch is working on a landmark new sports strategy for the UK, designed to tackle falling participation rates……perhaps Crouch should also look at the way sport is delivered to us, via… broadcasting…’
The BBC are trying to sell us a pup here.
I’m afraid I see very little evidence of a link between sports broadcasting and public participation in sport. Surely we have the ultimate test case in the 2012 Olympics – a massive bonanza of wall to wall BBC coverage – sport participation has actually fallen.
BBC Sports. Yes sums up the tepid inconsequential tennis reporting by one of its finest Sports starsr running her own ‘I hate men’ political agenda and inspiring the god awful left wing BBC ‘news Quiz’ as a Comic chair of the profane idiotic. The truth the BBC couldn’t care a toss about Wimbledon since John Inverdale was sacked left who was (still is) far superior to the mindless ‘Balding’ – twaddle we now have to put up with (as is Wimbledon 2Day) panned by everyone as worse than ever. The future of the BBC is probably not Sport or entertainment but something ‘else’ to be defined as pointless and clueless comedians unemployable anywhere else.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2875536/BBC-drop-Wimbledon-coverage-Plans-suggest-corporation-share-matches-BT-cost-cutting-drive.html
“The concern is that taking sports away from free-to-air platforms…”
…which cost £145.50 per year to access. Give it a rest BBC.