The regulations governing the broadcast of prestigious sporting events, known as the “Crown Jewels,” are set to undergo revisions to prevent the loss of broadcasting rights for the World Cup and Olympics by the BBC and other terrestrial channels in the future.
The Government has announced changes to the rules that protect events like the FA Cup final, Rugby World Cup final, and Grand National, ensuring their live broadcast on free-to-air channels.
The upcoming broadcasting White Paper, to be published on Thursday, will grant the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5 the first opportunity to bid for the UK broadcasting rights of the events on the Crown Jewels list.
According to the current rules outlined in the Broadcasting Act 1996, these rights must initially be offered to channels capable of broadcasting them free-to-air to 95% of the country.
However, concerns have arisen due to the significant changes in viewing habits brought about by the multi-platform era. There is a fear that other broadcasters may potentially qualify to hold these rights or that the Public Sector Broadcasters themselves may fail to meet the required viewership.
The proposed changes would prohibit broadcasters such as Sky Sports, BT Sport, Discovery, or Amazon from establishing wide-reaching free-to-air services in order to bid for Crown Jewels events.
While these changes would not prevent a scenario like Discovery acquiring pan-European rights to the Olympics, it would ensure that the Games continue to be shown free-to-air by the BBC or another Public Sector Broadcaster.
In addition, the Government has announced an examination of whether the listed-events regime should be expanded to include digital rights. This review responds to concerns that while the BBC may broadcast the Olympic 100m final live on television, all streaming and catch-up rights could be sold to a different broadcaster behind a paywall.
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries commented, “In the context of the digital transformation of our viewing habits, today’s plans aim to modernize longstanding laws, enabling our public service broadcasters to thrive in the internet age and usher in a new era of exceptional British TV and radio.”
Denial of responsibility! VigourTimes is an automatic aggregator of Global media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
