Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú

The report, commissioned by the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Trust and carried out by MTM London Ltd., looked at whether the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's management of its sports rights processes is achieving value for money.

The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú revised its processes for the acquisition of sports rights following a Trust Fair Trading finding relating to the acquisition of FA Cup rights in 2009.

The report includes a series of recommendations to further strengthen existing acquisition processes, but finds that overall the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's management of sports rights acquisitions is working well. Key findings and recommendations from the report include:

• The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú is effectively managing the bidding process, with an experienced team leading negotiations, and bids are routinely analysed to consider whether they represent the best value for money
• The Sports Rights team should document more clearly its approach to assessing the value of a right to competitors, and this should be used in Investment Cases in order to make the process more clearly evidence-based
• The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú did not succeed in winning three of the eight acquisitions attempted during the period covered by the report, suggesting that it is operating at market rates
• The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú has a clear set of targets for Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Sport, with a strong focus on delivering high quality content to all audiences, and the report finds that it has generally been successful in meeting these objectives
• The monitoring of the performance of individual rights against targets should be enhanced – e.g. by creating a 'dashboard' of different measures
• Competitive Impact Assessments (CIAs), which are carried out for potential acquisitions and consider the impact on the market, should become mandatory for all exclusive radio bids in excess of £0.5 million
• Investment Cases are inconsistent in their approach to comparing a proposed acquisition with existing sports rights. The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú should agree a set of key performance indicators that are used in all cases.

Anthony Fry, Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Trustee said:

"The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's coverage of major sporting events is valued by the millions of people who view or listen to them every week. But sports rights don't come cheap and the Trust needs to ensure that the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú is doing everything it can to secure best value for licence fee payers, while bringing them the best in sporting events coverage.

"The Trust welcomes today's review. While it essentially gives the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's processes a clean bill of health, we note the recommendations for improvement and ask the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Executive to set out how they will deliver against them."

The report follows a finding by the Trust's Fair Trading Committee in 2009 in relation to the acquisition of FA Cup radio rights. The Trust found that the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's internal processes for ensuring value for money from that acquisition were not followed with as much rigour as might have been expected, and that the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú had failed to conduct a proper competitive impact assessment as required under the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Fair Trading Policy. The Trust put sanctions in place at that time, requiring the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Executive to improve processes.

Notes to editors

1. It is the responsibility of the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Trust, under the Royal Charter, to ensure that value for money is achieved by the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú through its spending of the licence fee. In order to fulfill this responsibility, the Trust commissions and publishes a series of independent value for money reviews each year. The reviews are undertaken by the NAO or other external agencies
2. The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú spent a total of £260 million on sports rights in 2009/10
3. Competitive Impact Assessments (CIAs) set out how the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú will comply with its fair trading obligations
4. An Investment Case sets out the business case for securing a particular right. Investment Cases for sports rights are produced by Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Sport and submitted to the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Executive's Finance Committee for approval
5. More information on the work of the Trust can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust
6. MTM London is a research and strategy consultancy specialising in media, telecommunications and technology.