The BBC warns viewers that further sports are likely to be cut from its coverage after £35m was shaved off the Corporation’s sports rights budget.
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Hit show Strictly Come Dancing and the BBC drama operation – which includes the likes of Doctor Foster, Call the Midwife and London Spy – are understood to be protected from about £12 million of cuts to the TV budget. The broadcaster previously announced that delivering a “leaner” BBC will come from slashing £50M by eliminating divisions and cutting 1,000 posts by 2017; that work is underway. The shortfall has arisen due to the falling proportion of households owning a television licence, caused by a loophole which allows views to watch catch-up TV online without a licence.
However, it lost the rights to The Open golf in a battle with Sky this year, bringing 61 years of coverage to an end. That will come from a range of other genres including factual, comedy and entertainment.
The reason for these cuts is the BBC iPlayer.
A statement from the corporation today said: “We have welcomed the government’s firm commitment to close this loophole and will continue to urge ministers to legislate as swiftly as possible”.
With a further £550 million of savings to be announced in the spring of 2016 it doesn’t look good for the red button service.
In June the broadcaster lost the rights to show the Olympics from 2022, after U.S. company Discovery made a £920m offer for exclusive pan-European rights.
That follows the decision made by the government earlier this year to place the burden of paying for free TV licenses for pensioners onto the BBC.
“But cuts to budgets for programmes and services are unavoidable”.
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“The BBC has and is doing everything possible to make sure the impact on the public is minimised”. No Director-General wants to announce reduced spending on services that the public love.
