Call for evidence: Listed events - Implementing the Media Act 2024

The Media Act 2024 represents the first major update to UK media legislation for 20 years. It sets out to make sure people across the country continue to have access to a wide range of high-quality live and on-demand TV, ensuring that audiences are protected from harm and that regulatory structures are reformed to enable the media industry in the UK to thrive.

One change introduced by the Media Act is to the listed events regime, which applies to broadcast coverage of specific events of national interest, such as the Olympic Games, the men’s and women’s World Cup and European Championship football tournaments, and the Grand National. The listed events regime aims to ensure that coverage of these events remains widely available to audiences. However, it does not guarantee that listed events will be broadcast live or on a free-to-air channel, as rights holders are not required to sell live rights and broadcasters are not obliged to purchase them or show the events.

The Media Act amends the listed events regime, so that “qualifying services” which benefit from the regime can only be provided by public service broadcasters (PSBs), like the BBC and ITV. It aims to ensure that rights to live coverage of listed events are offered to PSBs, as well as to other services which are termed “non-qualifying services”. The Media Act also broadens the scope of the regime so that a range of new providers, including streaming services, will in future be subject to the rules. It does not change which events are, or are not, listed events (which is a matter for the Secretary of State).

As part of implementing these changes, Ofcom is required to define a number of terms used in the regime and to revise our Code on listed events.

In this call for evidence, we are seeking input to help us carry out this work. We would particularly welcome evidence about how viewing of listed events has been impacted by changes in audiences’ viewing preferences, and by changes in technology and in the wider media landscape. We are also interested in how rights for listed events are packaged and sold.