Approved application: World Athletics Championships 2022-23

Ofcom has given its consent to a request from the BBC to broadcast exclusive live coverage of the 2022 and 2023 World Athletics Championships (“the Championships”).

The Championships, which are to be held from 15 to 24 July 2022 in Eugene, Oregon, USA and from 19 to 27 August 2023 in Budapest, Hungary are a Group B Listed Event for the purpose of the Broadcasting Act 1996. This means that the BBC must seek consent from Ofcom to broadcast exclusive live coverage (See section 101 of the Broadcasting Act 1996).

We consulted between 27 May 2022 and 24 June 2022 on the BBC’s request.In our consultation, we said we were provisionally minded to grant consent, based on the information provided to us by the BBC indicating that the rights holder had invited bids from a range of broadcasters, and because the BBC’s plans would ensure the Championships would be available to view live and for free by audiences across the UK in 2022 and 2023.

Ofcom received no responses to the consultation.

Ofcom has decided to grant the BBC consent to broadcast exclusive coverage of the Championships on its qualifying television services. The rules (in Part 4 of the Broadcasting Act 1996) divide channels into two categories: “Qualifying” channels are those that are free-to-view and received by 95% of the UK population and “Non-qualifying” channels are those that do not meet these conditions. In this case, the BBC’s qualifying television services are BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three and BBC Four.