BBC’s exclusive Olympics rights under threat in new broadcast deal

Posted on by Listify Me

By
Sportsmail Reporter


PUBLISHED:

06:58 GMT, 27 June 2012

|

UPDATED:

07:00 GMT, 27 June 2012

Jacques Rogge, the International
Olympic Committee president, has raised the prospect of the BBC losing
its exclusive rights to broadcast the Games after London.

The IOC will seek to maximise
broadcasting revenue in the new digital landscape when it considers bids
on Friday for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.

On a mission: IOC president Jacques Rogge

One option is for the IOC to reserve 200 hours of coverage for free-to-air TV (100 hours for the
Winter Games) and broadcasting the rest through pay-TV or another
platform.

The UK broadcasting rights, which are held by the BBC, are protected
by listed-events legislation that guarantees it free-to-air coverage.

But the IOC has confirmed that a pay-TV broadcaster like Sky or a
telecom company such as BT, which recently paid £738m to show
Premier League football, could bid in expectation of the legislation
being changed during a government review next year.

‘Everything is possible,’ Rogge told the Guardian. ‘We just launched a
tender, because this is an obligation by the EU. It is open to everyone –
to public companies, private companies, free-to-air, satellite, mobile,
even the possibility to sell them to an agent company that buys the
rights and sells them on. The deadline is 29 June and then we will enter
into negotiations with different companies.

Blanket coverage: BBC will screen 2,500 hours of Olympic action

‘We sold the rights to Sky Italy but for the summer Games it has an
obligation to run 200 hours free-to-air and for the Winter Games 100
hours. They did not have the free-to-air capacity but they teamed up
with Rai, who will take care of the 200 hours. We have many countries
where that is the case. In many countries in Europe there is a
complementarity between pay television and public television.’

The BBC will screen 2,500 hours of live sport across BBC1, BBC3 and online but the IOC are also reviewing internet and mobile rights.

The majority of European TV rights were sold to the sports agency
Sportfive, but the six most lucrative markets – Spain, France, Germany,
Italy, Turkey and the UK – were carved out for direct negotiation.

They
have all been sold, apart from the UK. If it secures more than $71m from
the UK auction, which should be a foregone conclusion, it will have
raised more than $1bn from European sales.

Not long now: The London Games start on July 27

The tender document calls for bids for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi
and the 2016 Olympics in Rio but also provides the option for
broadcasters to tie up rights until the end of the decade, encompassing
the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the 2020 Olympics
in either Tokyo, Madrid or Istanbul.

In total, £2.5bn was raised from TV rights deals for the
2010 and 2012 Games, a significant increase on the £1.7bn raised from
the previous four years.

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not
debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have not been moderated.



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i’m an american free market kind of guy, therefore, I will simply pirate the broadcasts. the free hand of the market will work itself out. LOL!

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The sponsors aren’t going be happy when the event is relegated to some obscure channel and less people can be bothered to pay for view

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People should be careful what they wish for, there is a reason the Sky and BT paid so much for the football and that is because it is because it is the most popular sport int he country, obviously there will be a few people who will pay to watch the olympics but I can’t see many people going out of their way to pay to watch it.

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Anything to keep BBC’s paheticcoverage from our screens.Remember the Jubilee anyone ?

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Looks like only a few people will see it then!

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I watched the world atletics coverage on Channel 4 last year and it was inferior to the BBC, and I feel that the Olympics should remain on the BBC.

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considering the BBC have lost test cricket,horse racing,a chunk of formula1,etc i personally think they have sold the licence payer down the river over sports coveridge
– pete the painter , leicester, 27/6/2012 09:14
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Yes Pete but just think how many more cookery shows the Corporation can show to fill the schedules- they even cut the snooker (one of the few remaining decent contracts the BBC have) short on the evening sessions this year to show a REPEAT YES A REPEAT of a cookery show

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Its so boring anyway

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Its so boring anyway

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Great news!
Make it PPV and I will never have to bored again
Also, why doesn’t the BBC put football and others sports on their other channels and leave the schedules alone ?

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