UK commercial broadcaster Channel 4 said it intends to bid for the rights to the Rio 2016 summer Paralympic Games following its successful coverage of the London 2012 Paralympics.
“The Paralympics have been great for Channel 4 and we would be mad to simply break off and walk away,” Stuart Cosgrove, Channel 4’s director of creative diversity, told the Independent newspaper. “Rio will be a creative fist fight for the rights. We will put forward a strong argument based on the airtime we have given and the creative energies we have brought to it.”
The Daily Mail newspaper said that the tender documents for the cycle of rights for the 2014 winter Paralympic Games and the 2016 summer Paralympic Games had been issued by the International Paralympic Committee, which runs the Games. The Independent said that talks over the next cycle of rights would begin in about two weeks.
Channel 4 has been buoyed by strong ratings for the Paralympics. The main channel’s coverage of the closing ceremony yesterday (Sunday) attracted an average of 5.9 million viewers, a 25.7-per-cent audience share, and a peak of 7.7 million, to register as the most popular programme on Sunday evening in the UK, according to overnight figures from audience measurement company Barb.