Ministers urged to intervene as BBC under threat of losing of Olympics coverage rights

The BBC could lose the rights to screen the Olympics from 2022 after Eurosport and its parent company Discovery secured a £920m rights deal to show the Games in Europe.

In a major blow to the BBC, which styled itself as the "home of Games" during the 2012 London Olympics when it screened 2,500 hours of live action, the broadcaster will now have to negotiate a licensing deal with Discovery if it is to extend 60 years of continuous coverage of the Games. Discovery could "sublicense" limited live coverage to commercial, free-to-air UK broadcasters, including ITV and Channel 4, which already screens the Paralympics, ending the BBC's longstanding association with the Games.

The International Olympic Committee abandoned its practice of cutting deals with a consortium of public broadcasters in Europe and instead awarded television and online broadcast rights to Discovery for the summer and Winter Olympics, from 2018 onwards.

However under a previous deal, the BBC has already secured the television, radio and online rights to the 2016 Rio Games, the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and the 2020 summer Games in Tokyo.

As long as the Olympics remain a protected "A-list event" in the UK, under the Government's rules, viewers without access to pay-TV channels must be able to see "full live coverage" from 2022.

Eurosport has committed to broadcasting just 200 hours of summer Olympics and 100 hours of Winter games on freeto-air television. Ministers may have to revisit the "freeto-air" list to include a more detailed definition of "full live coverage". If Discovery restricts free-to-air coverage of a popular Olympics event to the final stages, excluding the heats, for example, viewers may feel they are being short-changed.

The BBC, which recently lost The Open golf championship to Sky, a casualty of cuts to its sports rights budget, said the Olympics "remain a priority".

A spokesman said: "More than 90 per cent of the UK population watched the BBC's coverage of London 2012 and it remains one of the most popular free-to-air, sporting events for UK viewers.

"It is not unprecedented for sports rights to be sold on a pan-territory basis and the BBC has acquired other sports rights via sub-licensing deals with either agencies or broadcasters. We will be seeking further discussions with Discovery about the UK freeto-air rights to the 2022 and 2024 Olympic Games in due course."

Discovery said it had "great respect for the quality of content produced by the BBC" but would now begin discussions over sub-licensing coverage with potential free-toair partners.

The company, which bought Eurosport last year, plans to set up a dedicated Europe-wide Olympic channel which would show all of the Games live. It could create a free-to-air version for each Games period, which would offer limited live coverage for UK viewers.

Chris Bryant, shadow Culture Secretary, said: "The Government needs to make it clear that it has no intention of dropping the Games from the protected events A list - and Eurosport should clarify its plans for UK coverage as a matter of urgency." The Department for Culture, Media and Sport indicated that there were no plans to alter the A-list of events.