The BBC should slash the amount of money it spends on mainstream sport on Radio 5 Live and drop its “chest-beating” and “aggressive” approach to its commercial radio rivals, according to TalkSport owner UTV Media.
UTV claimed 5 Live’s output was dominated by football, to the detriment of news and other sport on the broadcaster, and accused station chiefs of trying to “keep football fans within a BBC walled garden”.
UTV, which competes with the BBC on a range of sports rights including live Premier League football, made the comments in its submission to the BBC Trust’s review of speech radio.
It called for a radical review of 5 Live’s joint news and sport remit, which it said “made sense in an analogue world of spectrum scarcity” but was “increasingly anachronistic in a digital age”.
UTV said the BBC should no longer seek exclusive live radio rights and should set a minimum quota of 40% of 5 Live’s sports output that would cover sports other than men’s football, men’s cricket, men’s rugby and Formula One.
5 Live currently broadcasts 128 live Premier League games a season, with 64 on TalkSport and 32 on Bauer Media-owned Absolute Radio. TalkSport and 5 Live share live radio rights to the FA Cup and England friendly internationals.
UTV said 5 Live should cut its spending on sports content to 25% of its attributable content spend, down from 54% in 2010/11, while at the same time increasing the number of sports it covers to 30 a year from 20 three years ago.
“At times, 5 Live’s preoccupation with football appears to be part of a calculated strategy to keep football fans within a walled garden,” UTV told the trust.
It said there were “contradictions between the BBC’s aggressive approach to commercial rivals in radio, and its willingness on other platforms to provide relevant cross-promotion for third parties.
“When it comes to radio the BBC seemingly prefers to leave fans with the impression that radio coverage of sporting events can only be found on its own platforms. [This] ought to be anathema to a licence fee funded public service broadcaster.”
When TalkSport broadcast an exclusive commentary at a time when 5 Live had no rights, such as on Sunday lunchtimes, UTV said the BBC station would “often provide an extended studio chat programme focused on the football match carried on TalkSport.
“This will include extended updates from the stadium, thereby giving the impression of continuous coverage.”
UTV said 5 Live management had made “chest-beating assertions” that 5 Live did sport better than anyone else on UK radio. It said 5 Live should be judged on “distinctiveness from the commercial sector, not on areas of duplication”.
With 5.6 million listeners, 5 Live has nearly twice the weekly audience of TalkSport’s 3 million.
But the UTV station has gradually closed the gap, with 5 Live losing 700,000 listeners year on year at the end of 2014 following the departure of three of its biggest stars, Richard Bacon, Shelagh Fogarty and Victoria Derbyshire.
5 Live, which brands itself as the station “where football lives”, has looked to distance itself from the “Radio Bloke” tag but UTV said the Salford-based station was “overwhelmingly associated with sport” and “seen as having predominantly male appeal”.
UTV called on 5 Live to “establish clear blue water between itself and commercial sports media outlets by minimising its reliance on studio chat and discussion, particularly about popular sports such as football” (which is a mainstay of TalkSport’s output).
It said BBC management should “reimagine its speech radio offering” for the next charter period, which will begin at the end of 2016.
The BBC Trust review of speech radio, which will report in the summer, takes in 5 Live, 5 Live Sports Extra, Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra.
