The BBC is planning a reboot of its digital sports station 5 Live Sports Extra in a move that is likely to prove controversial with its commercial rivals.
5 Live management are understood to be considering a range of options including putting more sport on the station as well as other content from 5 Live and possible tie-ups with other stations.
The station, which currently broadcasts on a part-time basis, is one of the BBC’s least listened to national services.
5 Live previously put forward proposals to expand the station in 2011 – including repeats from 5 Live and other BBC stations – but they were rejected by the BBC Trust which said at a time of cross-corporation cuts it was “not … the right time to take this suggestion further”.
5 Live Sports Extra, which launched in 2002, broadcasts a range of sporting events including cricket, men’s and women’s football, and rugby league.
Any changes would take the station closer to a full-time operation. Currently there are large parts of the day when it broadcasts only trails of up-coming events.
Any such proposals, which are yet to be confirmed by 5 Live, is likely to be controversial in the commercial radio sector, where operators have already complained of the BBC’s dominant position with more than half of all radio listening to the corporation.
TalkSport owner UTV, which is planning to launch a sister station TalkSport 2 as one of three new digital spin-off stations on the new national commercial digital platform, has said 5 Live Sports Extra’s remit should be more tightly monitored.
In a recent submission to the BBC Trust, UTV said the number of hours 5 Live Sports Extra broadcasts should be “clearly defined” and “benchmarked against historic levels” dating back to the part-time station’s launch in 2002.
UTV said the station should not broadcast any live men’s football - the most valuable rights – except when 5 Live has been “forced to respond to a major breaking news event”.
It also said the station should not be the “home of” any sport, and should “revert to an overflow service … principally operating during major sporting events” such as the 2016 Olympics.
5 Live Sports Extra, which is broadcasting England’s Test match cricket series in the West Indies, had an average weekly reach of 657,000 listeners in the final three months of last year, down 25% year on year.
It has just over a third of the audience for Radio 4’s sister station, Radio 4 Extra, which had 1.7 million listeners. The BBC’s biggest digital station is 6 Music, with just over 2 million.
The main 5 Live station, which moved from London to Salford four years ago, also suffered a big ratings drop in the last official listening figures, down 700,000 to 5.6 million listeners a week.
Digital radio listening has grown in the UK in recent years but remains a minority, with more than half of listening still on analogue.
A spokesman for the station said: “We’re in discussions with the trust as part of the service licence review about our future plans for 5 live Sports Extra.”
In a statement, the BBC Trust said: “We have not yet received a formal proposal but any such proposal would be subject to the Trust’s usual regulatory processes.”
