London Olympic opening ceremony. Image: Flickr / Maykal
In an era of multi-channel digital television and increasingly fragmented audiences, live television coverage of major sporting events remains one of the few forms of programming able to bring the nation together for a shared viewing experience. In 2013, for instance, when Andy Murray became the first British winner of the men’s singles title at Wimbledon for 77 years, he was watched by a (BBC) television audience of over 17 million. Perhaps even more impressively, over 90 per cent of the UK’s population watched at least some of the BBC’s coverage of the 2012 London Olympic Games, with audiences for the opening and closing ceremony each exceeding 25 million.
Of course, the access of viewers to live television coverage of events like these in such huge numbers is dependent on their continued availability via the BBC and other free-to-air broadcasters. To illustrate the point, it’s worth considering the example of Ashes cricket. In 2005, Channel Four’s coverage reached a peak audience of 8.2 million. Four years later, following the sale of the exclusive TV rights to Sky, the audience peaked at 1.9m and, in 2013, just 1.3m. On Saturday afternoon, when England clinched victory in the First Test Match of this summer’s series, the TV audience was just 474,000, only marginally more than a repeat of Columbo being aired at the same time on ITV3! Cricket may well be earning far more from the sale of its rights to pay-TV, but it is less and less part of the national consciousness.
