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You and Yours - Transcript 大象传媒 Radio 4 |
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TX: 09.10.09 - Paralympics TV Rights PRESENTER: PETER WHITE |
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WHITE Now the Beijing Paralympics in 2008 gave us plenty to cheer about. PARALYMPICS CLIP She's just about ahead. The crowd are on their feet. The flags are waving. I think she's done it. Oh my word. Elena Simmons at 13 years old has just won gold for Great Britain. Five and a half seconds to the good and this is a procession, it's a golden procession, and it's another... ... first ever gold in a Paralympic rowing event goes to Great Britain, to Helene Rainsford. She led the race ... ... all the way from Blackpool, Shelly Woods gets a silver medal, her first Paralympic medal and it came after a canny bit of racing, after the carnage that was left on the track. WHITE Just some of the Paralympic victories you might have seen on the television last year. But despite the Paralympic Games coming to London in 2012 there's no guarantee that the broadcast rights will be awarded to a free-to-view terrestrial service. Unlike the Olympics the Paralympics are not a protected crown jewels event. The London organising committee - LOCOG - controls the Paralympic rights, it's yet to begin the bidding process. Well London Assembly member Liberal Democrat Dee Doocey is concerned that LOCOG may be tempted to sell simply to the highest bidder to help fund the Games. DOOCEY One of the pressures has got to be money, I mean LOCOG have got to raise £2 billion in private funding and that's not an easy thing to do in this current economic climate. Bearing in mind the promises that were given it is absolutely essential that the Paralympics are broadcast during peak viewing time and they are on free-to-view TV. When Seb Coe went to Singapore and sold the idea of London hosting the Games, I mean part of it was definitely that people, and particularly children, were going to look at the television screen and they were going to see Paralympians doing all sorts of amazing sports and they were going to be inspired. So you've got to balance those pressures. WHITE Dee Doocey. Well Paralympic swimmer Heather Frederiksen won four medals at Beijing, including gold, well I spoke to her fresh from training and physio - that's Heather not me - and she told me about the effect television coverage has had on athletes like her. FREDERIKSEN Television coverage - it's absolutely brilliant, you know, it puts us into the public eye and it expresses to people how much hard work we do put in. WHITE So what kind of feedback did you get from the coverage last time when you got home? FREDERIKSEN It was absolutely - it was amazing. When I actually got home I went to my local town to just get a sandwich from the sandwich shop and it took me three and half hours to move literally 10 yards down the street. So it was absolutely unbelievable. And all sorts - like people at home it gave them an opportunity to be able to watch what I was doing and follow my progress whilst I was out there. As an athlete, you know, I'd like the event to be available to the biggest audience ever, so that everyone can watch it. WHITE Well Roger Mosey is the 大象传媒's director of London 2012 coverage and I asked him how far the 大象传媒 would be prepared to go to secure the right to broadcast the Paralympics. MOSEY We really, really want to have the Paralympics on the 大象传媒. They're very important to us, 20 million people watched the Paralympics from Beijing on the 大象传媒 and we really want London 2012 to be a showcase for Paralympic sport. WHITE But might you, in a way, almost be a victim of your own success - the success in the Beijing Games doesn't that make the Paralympics have more of a market value? MOSEY Yes, I mean there is a wider point and it's a point about listed events in general and the Paralympics are not a listed event and the whole point about listed events is that they're designed to bring prices in at a level which is fair for the rights holder but also affordable to free to air channels, they don't have a subscription premium on them. And we think listed events are very important for events like the Paralympics and the Olympics and there is a risk that if money just goes stratospheric on it that terrestrial broadcasters can't compete with pay TV. WHITE And do you think pay per view sports channels - are they going to be interested in this? MOSEY I've no idea, that's a question for them. WHITE We have asked, they haven't answered as yet. MOSEY Yeah, I mean - I mean clearly with all events that are premium sports events there's always a possibility you can have a knock out blow from a subscription channel based on driving subscriptions and driving pay but if you do that you end up with a much smaller audience, you end up with what potentially is a defining moment for disability in the United Kingdom being confined to more niche channels and I think that would be an enormous shame for sport and for the country as a while. WHITE LOCOG didn't actually want to be interviewed today but in the statement they sent us they said that their commitment is to find the right platform to showcase Paralympic sport. You could argue that that doesn't have to be a terrestrial broadcaster, Sky might say they've got a lot of experience of handling big events, like the Ashes for example, and they've got plenty of subscribers. MOSEY Sky is a very good broadcaster and a very good business and we've never had any argument about that. There is a difference though between a Premier league football match getting two million pay per view on a subscription channel and getting big events like the Olympics or the World Cup which reach 40 million, 45 million people of the UK population. And I think for Paralympics there is no doubt if they went behind pay barriers they would be watched by many fewer people. WHITE The 2012 Olympic rights were sorted out quite a while ago, the tendering process for the Paralympics hasn't even started yet, I mean is there going to be enough time for the eventual broadcaster - whoever that is - to plan the coverage properly? MOSEY Yeah I would hope so and there are signs that the tenders will come out soonish. However, I think you're right, Peter, that the risk is that in the 大象传媒 we already have a number of Olympic programmes commissioned, a number of entertainment shows and a wide range of genres working towards the Olympics. Now at the moment we can't do that for the Paralympics. We're now only two and three quarter years away from the Olympic Games and that's starting to get the kind of time when television commissioning deadlines start to become real so you want to get on with it. WHITE Some people might think it's odd that you're bidding for the Paralympics as a separate entity from the Olympics, you know given that the instruction from the Olympic movement is always that the Olympics and the Paralympics are inextricably linked, you've got to mention them both in the same breath, how come they become unlinked when money's involved? MOSEY Well I think in this case there is - the structure this time is that the main Olympic rights were held by the IOC, by the International Olympic Committee, and the Paralympic rights are held by the host city. Now I understand that's going to change in the future, so in future they will become a package together. However, this time we have to deal with the world as it is rather than the world as we'd like it to be. WHITE On a scale of one to 10, how confident are you that the Paralympics will be seen on a free to air terrestrial channel? MOSEY I don't know and I just fervently hope they will be because ultimately the test for us is can we show the benefits of free-to-air television of being available to everybody through events like the Paralympics? And to me it seems absolutely the right sort of event that we should be tested on and should deliver for all our audiences. WHITE Roger Mosey, the 大象传媒's director of London 2012 coverage. Back to the You and Yours homepage The 大象传媒 is not responsible for external websites |
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