FEARS FOR 5 LIVE AS CUTS BITE AT THE BBC

THE BBC’s drastic cost- cutting plans include making Radio 5 Live’s acclaimed sports coverage available only online.

The proposal that would save a considerable amount of the station’s £66.1million-a-year budget comes as a result of the Corporation needing to find the £700m annual cost of free licences for over 75s by 2020.

The BBC have strongly denied that Radio 5 Live will be online only but the future of the network is under top-level discussion — and such a move is seen by others in the TV industry as inevitable because of the BBC’s financial situation.

They are already committed to slashing their rights budget by £30m. But making Radio 5 Live one of the casualties would cause a national outcry. Many sports lovers regard the station as an indispensable source of sporting news and commentaries and are used to hearing world-famous programmes such as Test Match Special on the radio — not via a computer or mobile phone.

Recent moves by the BBC have alerted the opposition to Radio 5 Live moving online. After they opted out of Formula One to save money, they made their motor-racing chief Ben Gallop head of Radio 5 Live and online content — suggesting a merger of the two was in the offing.

BBC head of sport Barbara Slater has been concentrating on acquiring online content, including the International Cricket Council’s

digital rights. The BBC’s annual report said Radio 5 Live’s audience fell below six million last year, on average tuning in for just over six hours a week, its lowest level. The station has already been looking at ‘developing its own online presence, offering a growing range of short-form clips’, said the report. Any scaling-down would benefit talkSPORT, who are launching a second channel next month concentrating on live content. Asked to comment on moving Radio 5 Live online, a BBC spokesman said: ‘There is no truth to this story.’