Barbara Slater, head of the BBC Sport division of UK public-service broadcaster the BBC, has warned that a cut in the UK television licence fee could lead to the broadcaster losing rights to major sports properties.
The licence fee has been frozen at £145.50 (€201/$229) since 2010 and will remain at the current price until at least April 2017. The fee is due to be reviewed in the next 18 months upon renegotiation of the BBC’s royal charter.
“There is going to be a huge debate about the BBC, what the BBC brings, the BBC as an asset to the UK, absolutely challenges around the licence fee going forward,” Slater said, according to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
“Having had a number of years now [as a] flat licence fee, which has resulted in smaller budgets for individual divisions such as sport, there is going to come a tipping point at which the BBC does need investment if it is going to continue to compete for, I think, events that people really treasure on the BBC.
“Of course we are exploring a multitude of different solutions to that, including sharing with other broadcasters and there is still a very, very significant investment that we’re currently making. But to see that on a significantly downward trajectory, I think, would be enormously damaging to the ecology of sports broadcasting.”
UK Prime Minister David Cameron recently pledged to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee following the Conservative party’s victory in the recent general election.
The BBC currently has rights to various properties, including the Formula One motor-racing series and the Wimbledon tennis championships.