BBC TO LAUNCH NEW SPORTS CHANNEL

PETER Salmon, BBC Director of Sport, has confirmed that the corporation are in negotiations with a number of commercial partners regarding a new digital Sports channel.
The Sports channel, a long held ambition of Salmon (pictured), is expected to be launched in 2001. The channel to be run commercially with a pay-TV commercial partner will be dedicated to sports in a bid to lure back key sporting rights, which the BBC has lost over the past few years.
The channel will need the approval of Culture Secretary Chris Smith. It is expected the new channel will be given up to double the current BBC sports budget of around £150 million, inducing the need for a separate commercial partner.
Salmon told the Observer: “We’ve been talking about this for years suddenly it’s on the horizon, and it’s serious, and there’s a will to do it from the top of the BBC.”
The new approach by the BBC is in line with Salmon’s views expressed during a BBC Online live chat forum in August when Salmon then Controller of BBC One argued for a multi-channel BBC: “We’ve got to prepare for the digital age. Pretty soon there will be hundreds of channels and outlets available to our viewers. We have to prepare new strategies for all our channels to meet these new challenges.”
(CMcL)