BBC Trust Chair Rona Fairhead said she is "sad" about the corporation’s dwindling sports coverage and admitted that the BBC "could well lose more sport rights over the next five years, when the broadcaster will need to save more than half a billion pounds as part of the new licence fee deal,"
according to Ben Dowell of RADIO TIMES. Fairhead said, "Some [savings] will come from program content cuts, and one of the biggest areas is sadly sport." Noting that "the astronomical cost of Premier League football" now accounts for a quarter of the total amount spent on TV programs in the U.K., she added, "I find it very sad. You don’t want to get the BBC to a stage where there is so little coverage that you lose the innate production capability, and I still think that the coverage that the BBC gives of sport is superb, and I’m a sports fan so I really care." The BBC "has struggled to compete for live sports rights against well-financed rivals Sky and BT, leaving the future of free-to-air sports broadcasting in the balance."
This year, "it also lost the rights to the Open Golf Championship to Sky."
In June, "it lost control of the Olympic Games" from '22 onwards, after U.S. broadcaster Discovery, the owner of Eurosport, secured a £920M ($1.3B) offer for exclusive pan-European rights (RADIO TIMES, 1/18). In London, Jasper Jackson wrote the budget constraints "come as the cost of broadcasting major sporting events has rocketed." The highest profile U.K. deal was the combined £5.14B ($7.2B) "spent by BT and Sky to show three seasons of live Premier League games." Fairhead "has faced extensive criticism" since taking over as chair of the trust, in particular over the way the license fee deal was struck. She said, "It’s the BBC! You know, I’ve talked to various other people who were in other organizations, and they say it’s extraordinary just how much the BBC is a lightning rod for attack" (GUARDIAN, 1/18).
