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Burnham announces free-to-air events review panel

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21 January 2009

A panel made up of some of the UK’s top sport, broadcasting and business talent is to review which events are broadcast free to the nation, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham announced today.

The panel will support ex-FA chief David Davies who is leading a review of the list, at the request of the Secretary of State.

The panel members are:

  • Dougie Donnelly
  • Angus Fraser
  • Professor Chris Gratton
  • Eamonn Holmes
  • Penny Hughes
  • Colin Jackson
  • Michael Pescod
  • Nick Pollard 
  • Hope Powell

Andy Burnham said:

“David Davies has assembled a panel with a considerable breadth of experience and expertise covering the worlds of sport, broadcasting and business.  I am very grateful to the panel members who have offered their time free of charge to help David Davies establish which events should be protected so the widest possible audience can see them for free.”

David Davies said:

“I am delighted that we have secured such a range of expertise and I look forward to working with the panel as the review moves forward over the coming year.”

The Broadcasting Act 1996 allows the Secretary of State to draw up a list of sporting and other events of national importance, with the aim of giving them the widest possible broadcast coverage. 

The current list, which includes events like the Wimbledon Tennis Finals and the Grand National, was compiled in 1998.  Andy Burnham announced in December that David Davies, former Executive Director of the Football Association, will lead a review of the list.

The review will cover three main areas:

  • the principle of having a list;
  • the criteria against which events may be listed; and
  • the content of any list itself.


The current list is divided into two groups – group A which protects live coverage, and group B which protects highlights. 

The review process will include consultation with broadcasters, rights holders and the public, and is expected to report by the second half of 2009.

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Notes to Editors

  1. The current membership of the review panel is:

    Chairman

    David Davies began his almost 25 year broadcasting career at BBC Wales in 1971. As a correspondent and presenter, he worked on programmes as diverse as the National News, Newsnight, Match of the Day, Songs of Praise and Children in Need. He reported on General Elections and World Cups as well as serving as a political and then education correspondent for BBC TV News. Between 1994 and 2006, he fulfilled a succession of senior roles, including Executive Director and International Development Director, at The Football Association.  He served the British Olympic Association for eight years. He now works as a consultant in sport and the media, and appears regularly on Sky News, BBC News and Radio 5 Live. He was awarded an OBE in 2006.

    Members

    Dougie Donnelly is one of Scotland's best-known broadcasters, and has been an anchorman on BBC sports programmes for over 30 years.  Since joining the BBC in 1978, he has covered a number of major sporting events including the Commonwealth and Olympic Games, The Scottish FA Cup Final, Football's World Cup and European Championships and The Open Golf Championship and US Masters.  A Law graduate, he is also currently Chairman of the Commonwealth Games Endowment Fund (Scotland) and a former Chairman of the Scottish Institute of Sport.

    Angus Fraser joined Middlesex County Cricket Club in 1984, making his first-class debut that summer.  During 19 years as a professional cricketer he made 46 Test and 42 one-day appearances for England between 1989 and 1999.  He was named as one of Wisden's Cricketers of the Year in 1996 and in the 1998 New Years Honours list he was awarded the MBE for his services to cricket.  He retired from cricket in 2002 to take up the position of cricket correspondent for The Independent Newspaper, a position which he held until 18 January 2009, when he took up the role of Middlesex CCC Managing Director of Cricket.  Whilst with The Independent he sat on the Middlesex CCC General Committee and the International Cricket Council's cricket committee.  He was also a member of the Schofield Review Group, a panel that looked into and made recommendations for the future of English cricket.

    Professor Chris Gratton is Professor of Sports Economics and Director of the Sport Industry Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University.  He has an international reputation as a sports economist, a subject which he has played a major role in developing since the late 1970s.  He has written five academic books in this subject area and has 13 years experience in evaluating the economic benefits of hosting major world and European championships in the UK in a wide range of sports.  He is an expert in the economics of sport broadcasting. 

    Eamonn Holmes is one of the most recognised faces and voices in British broadcasting.  His journalistic career spans 30 years and he is the longest serving anchor of breakfast television programmes in Britain, having worked for the BBC, GMTV and currently as the presenter of Sunrise on Sky News.   He has spent much of his career working as a sports broadcaster hosting various programmes, series and events for both BBC and ITV Sport.  He currently presents a two hour Saturday morning sports show on BBC Radio Five Live. 

    Penny Hughes is one the UK's outstanding business leaders. She is currently a Director of Home Retail Group plc, SEB (banking) in Sweden and Gap Inc USA. She has previously worked at Proctor & Gamble, the Milk Marketing Board and Coca-Cola where her successful career led to her appointment as President of Coca-Cola UK and Ireland in 1993. She has also held a number of important non-executive director positions including The Body Shop plc, Vodafone plc, Enodis (formerly Berisford plc) Reuters plc and Trinity Mirror plc. Penny is a sports enthusiast and has a wealth of experience in marketing including sports sponsorship.

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    Colin Jackson is one of the UK's most celebrated and successful athletes.  He held the world record in 110m hurdles between 1993 and 2006, won silver at the 1988 Olympics and gold at two world championships in 1993 and 1999, as well as four consecutive Eurpopean Championship golds from 1990 to 2002.  Since retiring from professional athletics Colin has worked as a coach and broadcaster.  He was one of the members of the London 2012 Olympic bid team, has written three books and is director of a multi-media production company.  His extensive broadcasting career includes appearances on the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? and as a finalist on Strictly Come Dancing.  He was awarded a CBE in 1992.

    Michael Pescod is a founding partner in Tricorn Partners LLP, the independent corporate finance advisory bank.  Before becoming an investment banker, he was a partner in the City law firm, Slaughter and May, where he ran the firm’s Mergers and Acquisitions practice. He is a former director of Barratt Developments, Jockey Club Racecourses and the Royal Opera House Trust.   His sporting interests are wide and include racehorse ownership, racquet sports and owning a season ticket at Newcastle United football club. 

    Nick Pollard has had a distinguished career in British journalism spanning forty years, and has very extensive experience in domestic and international news coverage. During this time he has worked for BBC Radio Merseyside as a reporter and presenter, BBC Radio News, BBC TV News and ITN where he was Executive Producer of News at Ten. Most recently he was Head of Sky News at BSkyB from 1996 to 2006.   He is now a consultant advising and assisting companies in the field of television news.

    Hope Powell was appointed as the first ever full-time National Coach of the women’s team in June 1998.  An experienced international with 66 caps for England and 35 goals she is the youngest ever England coach and the first female. Hope first played football with Millwall Lionesses at the age of 11 and has won The FA Women's Cup three times, including the league and Cup double as captain of Croydon in 1996.  Hope is patron of the Kick It Out campaign and the Women’s Sports Foundation and as well as managing the England Senior team, she oversees the whole set-up from Under-15s to the Under-21s, a coach mentoring scheme and The FA’s National Player Development Centre at Loughborough University. In 2002, she was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list and became the first woman to achieve the UEFA Pro-Licence coaching award in 2003.

    Further Panel members are likely to be appointed over the coming months.  All Panel members have been appointed, in an individual and personal capacity, for the experience, expertise and intellectual rigour they will bring to the review. They have also been appointed for the national, sporting, broadcasting and business perspectives they can contribute, but do not represent particular sports or broadcasting interests, which will be consulted formally during the review. Appointments have been made in line with the Department's policies for diversity in public appointments.

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  2. The current list of sporting events protected under the Broadcasting Act 1996 is:

    Group A (Full Live Coverage Protected)
    • The Olympic Games
    • The FIFA World Cup Finals Tournament
    • The European Football Championship Finals Tournament
    • The FA Cup Final
    • The Scottish FA Cup Final (in Scotland)
    • The Grand National
    • The Derby
    • The Wimbledon Tennis Finals
    • The Rugby League Challenge Cup Final
    • The Rugby World Cup Final           

    Group B (Secondary Coverage Protected)
    Cricket Test Matches played in England
    • Non-Finals play in the Wimbledon Tournament
    • All Other Matches in the Rugby World Cup Finals Tournament
    • Six Nations Rugby Tournament Matches Involving Home Countries
    • The Commonwealth Games
    • The World Athletics Championship
    • The Cricket World Cup - the Final, Semi-finals and Matches Involving Home Nations' Teams
    • The Ryder Cup
    • The Open Golf Championship

  3. EU Member states are entitled to draw up a list of events which are generally felt to have special national resonance to ensure, so far as possible, that they are broadcast on free-to-air television.

    The Government aims to ensure that these key events are available to as much of the population as possible and has outlined criteria for ‘qualifying’ broadcasters that meet that objective.  Those criteria are that the service is received by at least 95% of the UK population and at no additional cost to the viewer (excluding the television licence fee).  The services currently meeting these criteria (qualifying broadcasters) are BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five.  Five was added to the list in March 2008.

  4. The list was last reviewed in 1998.  The events on that list were considered to meet at least one of the following criteria:

    • the event and its outcome has a special national resonance, not simply a significance to those who ordinarily follow the sport concerned;
    • it is a pre-eminent and popular event giving it particular potential for encouraging participation in the sport concerned;
    • it is an event which serves to unite the nation; a shared point in the national calendar; and
    • it involves the national team in the sport concerned in a major international tournament.   

    At present the UK list contains only sporting events, however the list is not solely about sport and non sporting events could be included.   

    The review will take into account emerging broadcast policy, particularly Lord Carter’s Digital Britain Report and Ofcom’s review of Public Service Broadcasting.

 

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