? Everything is possible, says Jacques Rogge
? BBC desperate to hang on to Games rights
Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, has declared "everything is possible" when it comes to selling TV rights for the Games after London, raising the prospect of the BBC losing some or all of its coverage of the event.
A wide range of bids from traditional free-to-air broadcasters, pay-TV companies and telecom providers is expected by the IOC when it tears open envelopes containing the bids on Friday. It will then decide whether to go to a second round of bidding, as it seeks to maximise broadcasting revenue .
The UK broadcasting rights, which are held by the BBC, are protected by listed-events legislation that guarantees it free-to-air coverage. But the IOC has confirmed that a pay-TV broadcaster such as Sky or a telecom company such as BT, which recently paid �738m for a slice of Premier League live rights, could bid in expectation of the legislation being altered, or to sublease some of the rights back to a free-to-air broadcaster.
Alternatively, in the new digital landscape, there are many more companies which could potentially launch a free-to-air channel distributed via Freeview, cable, satellite and the internet.
It is understood that ITV, Channel 4, Sky and BT have also received the tender documents and are weighing up their options. Channel 4, which will show the Paralympics this summer and bid for Formula One rights, could be a surprise contender.
The government, which shelved an ongoing review of listed events when it came to power, will review the situation again this year, when the entire analogue TV network had been switched to digital.
Sources said it is unthinkable that the Olympics will not remain on the list in some form. But it is possible that they could follow the path taken by the IOC in reserving 200 hours of coverage for free-to-air TV (100 hours for the Winter Games) and broadcasting the rest through pay-TV or another platform.
"Everything is possible," Rogge told the Guardian. "We just launched a tender, because this is an obligation by the EU. It is open to everyone ? to public companies, private companies, free-to-air, satellite, mobile, even the possibility to sell them to an agent company that buys the rights and sells them on. The deadline is 29 June and then we will enter into negotiations with different companies," he said.
"We sold the rights to Sky Italy but for the summer Games it has an obligation to run 200 hours free-to-air and for the Winter Games 100 hours. They did not have the free-to-air capacity but they teamed up with Rai, who will take care of the 200 hours. We have many countries where that is the case. In many countries in Europe there is a complementarity between pay television and public television."
Another option, said Rogge, is separating out the broadcasting, internet and mobile rights, and selling them to different players. The IOC has sought to maximise the value of the TV rights since turning its back on a deal with the European Broadcasting Union in 2008, through which the BBC held the rights for the 2010 Vancouver Games and London 2012 as part of a $700m pan-European agreement.
The majority of European rights were sold to the sports agency Sportfive, but the six most lucrative markets ? Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the UK ? were carved out for direct negotiation. They have all been sold, apart from the UK. If it secures more than $71m from the UK auction, which should be a foregone conclusion, it will have raised more than $1bn from European sales.
The tender document calls for bids for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the 2016 Olympics in Rio but also provides the option for broadcasters to tie up rights until the end of the decade, encompassing the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the 2020 Olympics in either Tokyo, Madrid or Istanbul.
That was the route taken by the US broadcaster NBC when it tied up the US rights until 2020 with a $4.4bn bid in the face of competition from Fox and ESPN. In total, $3.91bn was raised from TV rights deals for the 2010 and 2012 Games, a significant increase on the $2.57bn raised from the previous four years. A further, more-modest increase is expected for 2014 and 2016.
BBC insiders say that it is desperate to hang on to the Olympics, recognising their value as the sort of major event that binds the country and burnishes its public-service credentials. But it is also operating on a tighter sports-rights budget, having endured a 20% cut in the wake of the licence fee being frozen.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jun/26/bbc-olympic-rights-new-tv-deal
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