Supper with the devil — a case study in private/public collaboration in broadcasting: the genesis of Eurosport

Abstract

Time-honoured distinctions between public service and commercial broadcasters are eroding. A chief driver of these changes is a rise in the prices of programmes and of the cost of television sports rights in particular. Many contemporary instances of these trends were foreshadowed in an early example of cooperation between European public service broadcasters and their commercial rivals in the 1980s. The EBU-sponsored satellite television channel Eurosport was a notable example. Eurosport was established in partnership with News International's Sky Channel in the late 1980s, a partnership that was brokered by the BBC. The history of Eurosport exemplifies the erosion of long-established distinctions between public service and commercial broadcasters in Europe. This process of `convergence' between public and commercial broadcasters will make special arrangements to protect and foster public service broadcasting difficult to sustain.