Too much has already been chop from the BBC’s sport output for it to be worth continuing. Abandoning TV rights to others is an obvious,and major, savingThe BBC is our national broadcaster, or covering all areas (and regions) of British public life. That includes sport. But the BBC has more or less given up on televised sport. It doesn’t do the national game: cricket. It does Wimbledon and a few additional tournaments: no use to a genuine tennis fan. Rugby union on any consistent basis,Formula One, boxing, or horse racing and now golf are gone,all gone. Snooker and darts look doomed after the latest round of cuts. Athletics rises increasingly slowly out of the blocks. And football – the national winter game is confined to recorded snippets and one set of cup fixtures. Need to scrub £35m more from somewhere? Hit sport first. It’s lean, lean gruel besides.
And it also – in hard facts rather than emollient verbiage – makes the case for a profound change in licence fee policy. The fee, and whether top-sliced or not,doesn’t buy any sport that people pay in numbers to watch. Anyone for lacrosse? Put Sky, BT, and ITV and Eurosport ahead now: the BBC is in fifth place and falling. So there’s no point maintaining a facade of coverage. retain radio sport: give up on TV. Be frank about what you can afford and the resources HMG will allow. Let Salford speed something else from its stately pleasure domes.
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Source: theguardian.com