MediaTel Special Report: TV Sports Coverage

ITV has called for top sporting events to be “off-limits” to exclusive cable and satellite deals, to enable all television viewers the chance to see them. Leslie Hill, chairman of the ITV Association, speaking at the National Heritage Select Committee meeting on TV Sponsorship and Coverage, claimed that BSkyB has enough money to outbid the terrestrial stations for any sport, even though this means that only 2 million Sky Sports subscribers would have access instead of a potential 28 million terrestrial viewers.

He called for the widening of the “heritage” list of events; these are top events considered so important that they must be shown on terrestrial channels such as: The University Boat Race, Grand National and Wimbledon. He suggested that others should be added: England’s cricket tests, major golf championships, England football internationals, world athletics and international rugby. ITV also pointed out that as well as satellite’s superior purchasing power, they have extra channel choice as well: ITV has one channel, whereas BBC has 2, but BSkyB has 6 channels, including one dedicated to sport.

Will Wyatt, managing director of BBC Network, said that the BBC was at present holding a “relatively competitive” position, but that with cable and satellite reaching an ever-wider audience, this was likely to be eroded.

BSkyB told MPs however, that competitive bidding such as its £300m five year deal with the Premier League had been overwhelmingly good for sport. David Elstein, its head of programming, said it should be left to sport’s ruling bodies to decide whether they wanted universal audience access to their top events.

If MPs were to support such a ban, it would be a serious blow to the cable and satellite industry. Sky Sports plans to launch a second sports channel in the autumn; sports are an essential factor in increasing dish sales. Sky Sports is expected to bid for Wimbledon and the domestic cricket contracts when they come up for renewal this year. A consortium of cable companies has won the exclusive broadcasting rights to the 1996 World Cricket Cup. The BBC recently beat ITV to the rights to screen domestic rugby union, with a £27m bid to secure exclusive live Five Nations games.

WORLD CUP

ITV and BBC are sharing the coverage of this year’s Football World Cup. ITV’s programming will be sponsored by Panasonic UK. There will be over 50 hours of coverage from the USA on ITV, from June 17 to July 17.

ITV will have live action from 10 group matches, including exclusive live action from the Republic of Ireland’s first two games: Ireland v Italy will be shown live on June 18, as will Ireland v Mexico on June 24. If Ireland reach the quarter-final stage, that match will also be shown exclusively on ITV. Coverage is alternated between ITV and BBC.

Bob Burrows, Controller of ITV Sport, said, “Historically, the stronger foreign teams like Brazil, Germany, Italy and Holland have immense pulling power, with average audiences of between 11 and 13 million for the World Cup in 1990.”

SAMPLE VIEWING FIGURES FOR 1990 WORLD CUP GAMES:

AUDIENCE ANALYSIS OF IRELAND V ENGLAND GAME: 11/6/90