IOC president Jacques Rogge said “everything is possible” when it comes to selling the UK television rights to the Olympic Games after London 2012, and raised the prospect that public-service broadcaster the BBC could be challenged for the rights by pay-television broadcasters and agencies.
“We just launched a tender, because this is an obligation by the EU,” Rogge told UK newspaper the Guardian. “It is open to everyone – to public companies, private companies, free-to-air, satellite, mobile, even the possibility to sell them to an agent company that buys the rights and sells them on. The deadline is June 29 and then we will enter into negotiations with different companies.
“We sold the rights to [Italian pay-television broadcaster] Sky Italia but for the summer Games it has an obligation to run 200 hours free-to-air and for the Winter Games 100 hours. They did not have the free-to-air capacity but they teamed up with Rai, who will take care of the 200 hours. We have many countries where that is the case. In many countries in Europe there is a complementarity between pay television and public television.”
It is the second time this month that Rogge has spoken to the UK media about the prospect of the Olympics rights moving from their traditional home on the BBC, following a similar interview last week with the Daily Telegraph.
The IOC is currently tendering UK rights covering at least the next two editions of the Games, in 2014 and 2016. Bidders can also make offers for the rights for the 2018 and 2020 Games.
The UK rights to the Games are protected under listed-events legislation which says the entire event must receive free-to-air coverage. However, the Guardian reported that the IOC has said pay-television broadcasters such as BSkyB or a telco such as BT could bid in expectation of the legislation being altered, or of sublicensing some of the rights back to a free-to-air broadcaster. The UK government is set to review the listed-events legislation this year.
The BBC’s sports-rights budget has been cut following a 20-per-cent overall budget cut at the broadcaster enforced by the UK government. The Guardian reported that the BBC is “desperate” to retain its Olympic rights due to the event’s status as a property that “binds the country and burnishes its public-service credentials”.