German regional public-service broadcaster WDR has called for greater transparency in national public-service broadcaster ARD’s acquisition of sports rights, according to the EPD news agency.
The demand was one of a number of recommendations made in a report by WDR’s broadcasting council, which called for ARD to increase the range of sports programming it provides.
The report said that while ARD’s coverage of German Bundesliga football is deemed to have a positive impact, the financial cost of the rights should be regularly assessed.
Ruth Hieronymi, chairman of the WDR Broadcasting Council, said: “The present position paper of WDR Broadcasting has already made a representation of the interests of the public in advance of future contract negotiations.”
Earlier this month, MDR, the public-service broadcaster for the German states of Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, criticised ARD’s level of spending on football rights.
MDR said in a broadcasting board report that ARD’s spending on football rights was “unbalanced” in the context of its total sports budget. The report said that while football makes up only 29% of ARD’s sports coverage, it accounts for 70% of its spending on sports rights.