Wimbledon and the Ashes to be added to the reserved TV list
Wimbledon and the Ashes could be added to list of sports that are reserved for live coverage on free-to-air television.
The former executive director of the FA David Davies is expected to call for a “radical” rethink of the current list, which includes sporting events such as the FA Cup final, the Grand National and the Olympic Games.
Davies’ recommendations follow a ten-month long review for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, which has been carried out by a panel of sports stars and broadcasters.
The findings being delivered this week will call for both Wimbledon and the Ashes to be added to the list, along with international football qualifiers, according to reports.
However, some events such as the rugby league cup final and the Epsom Derby may be removed from the list.
At a Westminster Forum event on this subject last month, Francis Barron, chief executive of the Rugby Football Union, argued strongly that the individual sports governing bodies were best placed to take decisions over their TV distribution rights and were always mindful of income (some of which feeds grass roots development) as well as public interest.
Barron said that the RFU wanted the Six-Nations to remain on the BBC, but had real concerns about the ability of the free-to-air market to pay for events – “only the BBC is a player; ITV and Channel 4 are out of the market due to structural change,” he said.
Stephen Barnett, professor of communications at the University of Westminster, thought very differently. “The problem lies with the sports bodies,” he said. “How much do they represent the public rather than their players these days? Australian sport has a much wider list than the UK. Is their sport weaker at grass roots level than ours as a result?”
David Wheeldon, director of policy and public affairs at BSkyB, unsurprisingly argued against any form of listing. “The BBC is well funded, it can prioritise its budget. We are sometimes outbid by the BBC.”
He pointed to the BBC’s £40 million deal on Formula 1 as an example of its financial clout and noted its unwillingness to pay for live rights for the recent Ukraine v England World Cup qualifier – which would potentially become a listed event under a rethink of the list.
Last month, NewsLine’s weekly commentator Raymond Snoddy argued that big sporting events, such as the England v Ukraine match, which was broadcast exclusively via the internet on a pay-per-view basis, should be on terrestrial television.
“For sports such as football the age-old dilemma between visibility and cash has once again been thrown into sharp relief,” he said. ” If sports administrators have any sense they will chose public visibility over maximising cash every time.
“The emotional impact of live is at its most potent when it is a shared experience. You can kill interest in a sport by taking it behind the pay per view curtain.
“In a fragmented television world it is the big sporting events that almost uniquely bring the big audiences together in the old way. They should be on terrestrial television, and for the commercial community that means ITV.”
At the time, Snoddy urged Davies to “get a move on” with extending the list in the public interest to protect home sporting events for terrestrial television in the UK.