The BBC agreement will be reviewed by a parliamentary committee

The reaction of British fans upon the announcement of the new agreement between the BBC and Sky had been unanimously negative. Now, politicians are getting involved and want more details about the negotiation process of said contract. This will therefore be the subject of an investigation by a parliamentary committee.

Logo Mi mini
Rédigé par Par

For the record, the agreement provides that Rupert Murdoch’s pay-TV channel will be able to broadcast all practice sessions, qualifications, and races between 2012 and 2018, while the British public television will have to settle for half of the races live, with the other half being the subject of simple highlights.

The reason given by the Beeb for reaching a new agreement despite having a contract until 2013 is that it could not bear the costs demanded by Bernie Ecclestone’s FOM alone, while David Cameron’s government had required a drastic plan to cut expenditures (£600 million by 2014 and a freeze on the license fee until 2017).

The Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament Don Foster wrote a letter to Mark Thompson, the channel’s director-general, demanding explanations for the true reasons that led him to enter exclusive discussions with the Sky group, which was then under scrutiny due to the scandal of illegal wiretapping conducted by the News of the World newspaper. In fact, Bernie Ecclestone seems to state that it was the BBC that forced Sky’s involvement. It appears that the BBC “had the upper hand” as there was still time left on the current contract. He claims that Sky came to the negotiating table thanks to the BBC. He states that “the BBC tied itself to Sky. I also talked with ITV and encountered the same issue with Channel 4. We had a contract with the BBC that wasn’t due to end until 2014.” He even went so far as to say that “my hands were tied.”

The BBC executives have reportedly preferred to partner with their eternal competitor in pay-TV in order not to strengthen their competitors in free-to-air television, Channel 4, Channel 5, and ITV, who could have had the necessary funds to present F1 races in addition to the BBC. The British MP thus claims that the only reason the BBC continues to broadcast F1 is that it was the only solution that allowed them not to violate the Concorde Agreements, which require F1 races to be broadcast on pay-TV: « The BBC can certainly broadcast half of the races, but this means nothing to fans who want to watch the entire season live. They cannot buy half of the Sky package. For them, all the rights could have been granted to BSkyB since it will cost them exactly the same. But that would have violated the Concorde Agreements and the numerous public statements made by FOM in favor of free television, which means that the BBC has legitimized an otherwise indefensible situation of seeing fans pay the full price for complete access to F1. »

Mark Thompson will therefore now appear before the House of Commons’ culture, media, and sport committees to explain the context of the contract negotiations that are causing so much discussion.

With the participation of RacingBusiness.fr

Votre commentaire

Vous recevrez un e-mail de vérification pour publier votre commentaire.

Haut
Motorsinside English
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.