19/11/2015
NEWS STORY
Faced with the need to reduce its spending, the BBC may need to drop live coverage of F1.
The broadcaster, whose estimated £5bn annual revenue is largely made up of a compulsory tax on viewers courtesy of a licence, needs to cut £35m from its sport budget.
"Meeting this savings target will be tough, particularly given the high levels of inflation in the market," said the corporation's sports chief Barbara Slater. "We therefore anticipate this will lead to the loss of some existing rights and events.
"We have already made some tough choices which have contributed to the savings, for instance around the Open golf," she added. "However, we have also recently secured a series of important rights including Wimbledon, Premier League highlights, live coverage of Euro 2016 and 2020 football championships and Six Nations rugby shared with ITV."
Whilst no mention was made of F1 it is widely feared that this will be the case.
Having won the rights back from ITV, faced with a fall in revenue the BBC subsequently had to end its contract early, coming to a deal with Formula One Management that would allow it to show half the races live, whilst rival Sky, had all the races.
Those races which are not shown live by the BBC are transmitted later in the day as highlights, the deal understood to cost the corporation around £20m a year.
In recent years, much to the frustration of fans, the BBC has 'lost' a number of high-profile sports, not least The Open (golf), which it gave up in favour of Sky a year before its contract was due to end.
"I spoke to the BBC," Bernie Ecclestone told the Daily Mail. "They have got a bit of bother with their budget. They’d like to deal with it in another way and restructure it and give us a little bit less. But they can’t really do that. They’ve got a deal with us."
Indeed, he subsequently told the Daily Telegraph that the current contract has three years left to run, until the end of 2018.
"They don't have a lot of choice," he said "They're there for another three years."
"What they would like to do is not spend as much money," he added. They want to know if they can schedule it different ways or pay a bit less now."
Fact is, F1 needs terrestrial coverage for whilst die-hards will pay for Sky's dedicated TV channel, casual fans will not.
Whilst there is talk of the BBC dropping all of its live races and merely featuring highlights - not an issue if the event is as soporific as last weekend's race in Brazil - there is also speculation that ITV could yet step into the breach.