Jeremy Darroch, chief executive of UK pay-television broadcaster BSkyB, ordered a news story to be removed from the broadcaster’s Sky News website following a complaint that it had upset Formula One teams, according to the Financial Times newspaper.
Darroch’s intervention came a day before Sky broadcast its first live Formula One race on a new dedicated Sky Sports F1 channel on Sunday.
The story had suggested that the Ferrari and Red Bull Racing teams were close to agreeing favourable deals with Bernie Ecclestone, chief executive of the Formula One group of companies which controls the championship’s commercial rights, and CVC, the private equity group which ultimately owns the commercial rights. The report said that Ferrari would be given an ownership stake in the championship and both teams would have a place on the Formula One board.
Such deals would be controversial because of the strong position they could put Ferrari and Red Bull in compared to the other teams. The news comes as negotiations are expected to begin between all teams and Ecclestone and CVC over a new ‘Concorde Agreement’ for 2013 onwards. The current Concorde Agreement, which puts in place the division of the sport’s commercial revenues between its owners and teams, runs out at the end of this season.
The Financial Times, citing people familiar with the decision, said that Martin Turner, executive producer of Sky Sports F1, called his superiors from Melbourne, where his team was about to broadcast the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. He reportedly said that the article had caused a strong negative reaction from some F1 teams.
Darroch ordered the article to be taken down, subject to a review of the story. Following the review, the article was published again with alterations.
“It was an oversight that the article appeared without those BSkyB colleagues for whom it might have caused a problem being made aware,” a source told the newspaper.
Sky acquired UK rights for Formula One in a seven-year deal, from 2012 to 2018.