Written evidence submitted by the BBC

May 2021

The DCMS Committee - Major Cultural and Sporting Events Inquiry BBC written evidence

Executive summary

1. The BBC is the biggest media provider in the UK. It is highly trusted and consumed by over 90 percent of adults and 80 percent of young people every week[1].
2. Being a free to air, and universal broadcaster means the BBC is in a unique position to successfully unite audiences and bring people from all four nations together for the biggest cultural and sporting events.
3. The BBC’s universality is underpinned by its mission to inform, educate and entertain all audiences, and promote the five Public Purposes as set out in the Charter[2].
4. Reflecting all audiences, across the UK, is key to universality. Over the next 6 years the BBC will cement its commitment to better representing, and serving all parts of the country.[3]
5. The BBC can provide a universal service due to the unique way it is funded. The licence fee makes the BBC directly accountable to its audiences.
6. Major sporting events are fundamental to the UK’s national identity and that of the nations’ individually. They have a profound cultural and social impact. They unite our audiences and create pride in our sports teams and individuals. They play a vital role in the nations’ well-being, are important to the UK economy and influential in its standing overseas. 
7. Only if sport and the top events are available to the widest possible audience can the UK make the most of its unrivalled talent and potential. The listed events regime maximises the positive impacts of the biggest sporting events, encourages and inspires people from all backgrounds to participate and builds sporting role models that can inspire the next generation of elite performers. It must remain robust and relevant for the long-term.
8. Showcasing the biggest cultural events the BBC brings audiences across the UK together. BBC universal coverage also ensures key moments are shared by all audiences for example a Royal Wedding or Jubilee, Armistice Day or Remembrance Sunday.
9. Over the past year, the importance of universal public service broadcasting to audiences has been clearly demonstrated. People have been unable to attend cultural and sporting events in person and record numbers have tuned into the BBC’s virtual live music shows and festivals; and adapted and enhanced arts and sports coverage.
10. The audience response over this period has also reflected the importance of the BBC. Almost three-quarters of the UK public say that the BBC is a national institution to be proud of and over three-quarters say the BBC is important to people in the UK. [4]
11. The BBC Arts Culture in Quarantine campaign was launched at the start of lockdown, with unique commissions and an arts and culture service running across platforms. Working with artists and organisations across the UK, BBC content focussed on museums and galleries, books and poetry, and the performing arts. The campaign has been extended and will continue as the UK recovers from the pandemic.
12. Universal provision also ensures the wider creative industries and audiences benefit through increased participation, interest, and economic benefit.
13. The ways in which the BBC ensures universality for major cultural and sporting events, and brings audiences across the nations together are detailed further below.

Cultural events

14. The BBC unites the nations’ audiences through multi-platform coverage of the key cultural events in the nations and across the UK.
15. Representing all audiences across the UK is key to universality and the BBC will invest at least £700m extra cumulatively outside London by 2027/28, driving an additional economic benefit of around £850m.[5]
16. This commitment will include supporting live music with over 1000 live events and sessions across pop and over 500 classical concerts and studio sessions across the UK every year. Through partnerships with PRS Foundation and the Creative & Cultural Skills Council the BBC will give new UK artists the opportunity to play at festivals and events around the world, building future UK music exports.
17. Key examples of the BBC’s ability to bring people together are BBC Music Live Events. For example, BBC Music’s Biggest Weekend in 2018 was a unique music festival in four nations with more than 130,000 people in attendance. In 2019, the Proms delivered 90 concerts in 58 days , with more than 300,000 people at the Royal Albert Hall, Cadogan Hall, and at ‘Proms at …’ concerts.
18. Even when the pandemic does not enforce restrictions on people attending events in person the maximum number of people can only be reached through universal broadcasting.  The Biggest Weekend was showcased across the BBC’s radio stations - Radio 1 broadcast live from Swansea, Radio 2 and Radio 3 visited Perth and Coventry and 6 Music was in Belfast, with performances from the top UK and international performers. And in 2019, every Proms concert was broadcast live via BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds with a 14m reach on BBC TV and iPlayer.  In 2020 the online Proms secured an estimated weekly radio audience of 2.2 million and a cross platform reach of 15.6 million.
19. Social restrictions during the Pandemic have brought particular challenges for live production, but the BBC has continued to offer audiences across the UK a broad range of live and as-live programming. For example:

• On TV, the BBC marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War with music, dance and memories on VE Day 75: The People’s Celebration and brought the audiences in all the Nations together as 20 million saw in the New Year with the BBC.
• Culture in Quarantine brought arts to audiences at home while helping to support a sector deeply affected by the pandemic. It will continue through 2021 with, for example, the BBC partnering with theatres across the country to produce an unprecedented season of plays.
• The BBC delivered hundreds of live music performances; first from homes and then from live venues, and at a critical time for audiences and the music industry, it used its archive to recreate the biggest music events of the year including Glastonbury, Edinburgh and Reading & Leeds festivals.
20. Audiences continue to want access to the BBC’s major music events and planning and programming have been adapted to ensure the safety of audiences and staff. For example, in summer 2021 the Proms will return to live Proms with audiences with six weeks of Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. The BBC hope to return to a full eight week season in 2022, celebrating the BBC’s centenary with a return to an international festival, with capacity audiences and a renewed focus on live concerts across the UK.
21. In the Nations the BBC will also cover key cultural events. For example:

• In Northern Ireland BBC Radio Ulster will showcase the best musical talent through its School Soloist of the Year competition and Young Musicians’ Platform initiative.
• In Wales the BBC will work closely with a range of partners once again to ensure that virtual events such as the Urdd and National Eisteddfodau summer festivals are reflected across BBC services. The BBC is also continuing Ffolio, our partnership with Arts Council Wales, creating short films with young creatives from diverse backgrounds across Wales.
• In Scotland, The Edinburgh International Festival, Fringe, Military Tattoo and International Book Festival are at the heart of the BBC’s cultural output each August, both on the BBC’s Scotland-based services and on network TV, BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4. Throughout the year, the BBC’s partnership with Screen Scotland also delivers a range of key network content from Scotland. Music remains of fundamental importance to the audience in Scotland, including the BBC’s own events such as the annual Young Traditional Musician of the Year competition, and BBC Scotland will aim to cover the return of live music in general as we emerge from the pandemic, including the TRANSMT Festival in Glasgow.
• Cultural content connected with the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow is also being planned. Radio Scotland has launched a Climate Tales competition, for young people to give a creative response to the climate crisis. 
22. The BBC will also continue to develop and offer an enhanced user experience for all audiences around cultural events, including through behind the scenes and on–demand content provision. 

Sporting events

23. Sport is a hugely important part of national identity. Across the nations of the UK, different sporting events are of major importance to audiences – rugby union test matches involving Wales, for example, are often watched by more than two-thirds of the Welsh population on free-to-air television[6]. The impact of these events can also be measured by audience reach which as a percentage of the viewing population is higher in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland than in England. For example, Euro 2016 reached 65% of England’s viewing population vs 73% across the nations, Olympics 2016 reached 76% in England vs 79% in the nations, Commonwealth Games 2018 reached 59% in England vs 71% in nations.[7]
24. Major multi-sport events such as the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games provide a unique platform for showcasing the talents of sportspeople from all corners of the UK. The societal and personal benefits they deliver are as impactful in Belfast as they are in Bournemouth, in Penrith as they are in Port Talbot.
25. Only free-to-air broadcasters can truly amplify those unifying moments through the reach and breadth of their output. The BBC uses its full range of platforms and services to showcase the sports, events and personalities involved.
26. The Listed Events regime requires that certain broadcasters are given a genuine opportunity to acquire the rights to broadcast listed events, and this needs to be kept up to date as technology and viewing habits change.
27. There remains a huge appetite for sport on the BBC and the Listed Events regime ensures the most significant events can be broadcast free-to air. The main free-to-air broadcasters in the UK accounted for just 4% of all the sport broadcast on UK television in 2019/20, but delivered around 53% of the total viewing of sport[8]. Despite the growth of pay TV in the last 20 years, Match of the Day and other football highlights’ TV programming, for example, still account for two-thirds of all Premier League Football viewing in the UK[9]. This ‘mixed economy’ model serves sport and audiences in the UK very well.
28. Some events require public money to bring them to the UK, for example through UK Sport. As the public is helping to fund them, they should be universally available.
29. The BBC recognises the vital role it plays in promoting interest and participation in all sports and this has been particularly evident in women’s sport. In the summer of 2019 45 million people consumed women’s sport content across BBC platforms[10] with 28.1 million tuning into live coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup[11] and millions watching the Netball World Cup.[12]
30. Building on this success the BBC is committed to covering more women’s sport and key events. For example, alongside the FA Cup, it has secured a new rights deal for the Women’s Super League, with 22 league games to be broadcast live on BBC One and BBC Two over the next three years. And in cricket the BBC will broadcast two live women’s T20 games and all women’s international games on Test Match Special.
31. In Scottish sport, BBC Scotland has recently re-committed to ongoing highlights coverage of women’s football, in collaboration with BBC ALBA and to an enhanced offer around Scottish football overall.  The Scotland men’s team’s appearance at this year’s European Football Championship will also be a key moment for audiences, and the BBC will have a range of specially commissioned comedy, documentary and entertainment content alongside coverage of the sporting action. 
32. Despite the postponement of key sporting events like the Olympic Games and the European Football Championships, sport on the BBC has played an important role in bringing audiences together during lockdown. For example:

• The BBC brought live top-tier English league football back to BBC TV for the first time since 1988 and record breaking audiences tuned in. 5.7m watched Southampton-Manchester City in July – setting a new viewing record for the Premier League in the UK and 200,000 above any other Premier League game during the pandemic, whether on Free-to-Air, Satellite or over the Internet.[13]
• Radio 5Live introduced the very successful MOTD podcast and saw a large number of requests for the replay of historic sporting events (including full five day test matches), with the return of live sport joined with other radio broadcasters to make every single Premier League game available Free-to-Air on radio for fans who could not be there in person.
33. As the UK emerges from Covid the BBC will continue to play its part in supporting audiences to access content across sport and culture. Planning, and programming of, postponed and scheduled 2021 sporting events are key to this. For example there will be live coverage of the: postponed 2020 Summer Olympic Games from Tokyo; postponed 2020 UEFA European Football Championship from across Europe; 2021 Rugby League World Cup hosted in England; 2022 Winter Olympic Games from Beijing; Wimbledon Championships; Paralympics from Tokyo on radio; The Hundred and the Ashes from Australia on Test Match Special, on radio and online.
34. Throughout the year, BBC Sport will continue to provide a comprehensive service for football fans. Alongside the Women’s Super League matches the BBC will continue with its live FA Cup offering; 5 Live Sport will have more top-flight games than anyone else, and there will be TV highlights and extensive coverage on the BBC Sport website.