BBC Asks for Increased Subsidy Shocker!

Thursday, 30th July 2009

Unsurprisingly, the BBC wants the government to increase the number of sporting events that have to be shown on "free-to-air" [sic] television. But it's hard to see why there needs to be any list of "protected" sport on terrestial television in the first place, let alone why that list should be expanded. Here's the BBC's argument:

The BBC insists the protected list should be retained and its submission argues that "to limit access to those willing and able to subscribe to pay-TV would threaten the fabric of our sporting and cultural nation".

Dominic Coles, chief operating officer, BBC Journalism and director of sports rights said: "The BBC believes the list works well and delivers a healthy mix of pay television and free to air sport; plurality which preserves key sporting moments for the whole UK public, encouraging sports participation whilst delivering sufficient funding into UK sport to deliver the extensive range of great sport we enjoy.

"In an increasingly fragmented society, the ability to broadcast, freely available to all, those major events that can unite communities and deliver social value cannot be underestimated.

"Imagine the London Olympics, or perhaps a 2018 World Cup hosted in England, not being universally available for the whole UK to enjoy irrespective of individual financial circumstance."

This is, as you might expect, special pleading of the worst kind. Anyone who remembers what TV sport was like 25 years ago can only be thankful for the satellite revolution. Where once there were only two bidders - BBC and ITV - for sport, now the number of buyers has risen to include: BBC, ITV, SKY, Channel 4, Five, Eurosport, ESPN. Plus, there are the specialist channels such as ESPN America and the Racing Channel. And those channels all provide better coverage than either the BBC or ITV did in the bad old days.

As readers know, I'm a sports fan. But that doesn't mean that the BBC should be able to screen events at artificially low prices (depriving sports bodies of much-needed income incidentally), nor that the majority of the country that isn't interested in any given sporting even - including, incidentally, the Olympics and the World Cup - should have to subsidise the television preferences of the minority that does.

In any case, one way or another, SKY is available in something like 12 million homes these days, to say nothing of the pubs and cubs that subscribe to its services. The percentage of the population genuinely interested in sport that has little access to sport on TV must be pretty small.

If the BBC wants to show more sport then the obvious solution would be for the Corporation to run its own dedicated sports channels, paid for by consumers who want to watch sport, just as SKY and ESPN currently operate.

Filed under: BBC (86 more articles) , Markets (57 more articles) , Sports (69 more articles)

Previous Back to Alex Massie Next

Blogs: Martin Bright | Susan Hill | Melanie Phillips | Coffee House | Faith Based

Actions: Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (2)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Post comment

Fred S

July 30th, 2009 4:47pm Report this comment

'cannot be underestimated.' - a phrase from the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation piece quoted above. They mean the opposite of what they say. Only for the tiniest of things does the phrase 'cannot be underestimated' make any sense. Like the value for money of the BBC perhaps?

Anthony Steel

July 30th, 2009 8:12pm Report this comment

I am no great fan of the BBC, and their cricket coverage was dire, but at least I was able to watch home Ashes matches.

I could afford Sky, but live in a Grade 1 Listed property where satellite dishes are a no no. Cable is not available either. A pub is fine for a 90 minute football match, but a five day Ashes Test Match?

Such sporting events should be on free-to-air terrestial, but certainly not restricted to the BBC. Channel 4 did a superb job with cricket coverage until 2005.

To turn the article's final argument on its head, if Sky are so keen to show such crucial sporting events, they should be free to have a terrestial channel on Freeview and could show sport on that, paid for such adverts as they deemed fit.

Post comment