Salmond accuses BBC over 2014 Commonwealth Games cash shortfall

by mudricky | November 17, 2009 at 02:23 pm

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Scottish first Minister Alex Salmond has verbally attacked the BBC for failing to commit to the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

There is a shortfall in how much the games will cost and the Scottish Government and Glasgow city council will add the rest.

The BBC is understood to be hard-bargaining over what it should pay to televise the Games, raising the prospect that organisers may fail to secure coverage of the event on a free-to-air channel.

Mr Salmond said: “For the Manchester Games in 2002, the income from domestic broadcasting rights from the BBC more than offset the cost of broadcasting those Games.

“Our plans were based on the BBC offering a similar detail for Scotland in 2014. However, the BBC have not yet stepped up to the plate and offered to match the Manchester figure, and Scotland is left looking at a potentially significant shortfall.”

For the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002 the BBC had an outlay of £20m to show the Games and then paid an additional £2m for the rights to show them.

ORGANISERS of the 2014 Commonwealth Games have insisted their lasting benefits will far outweigh rising costs, after they were forced to pump in an extra £81 million, taking the budget to £454m.
The Scottish Government, Glasgow City Council and the Games Organising Committee yesterday announced they had had to plug a funding gap caused by an increase in broadcasting and staffing costs. It followed a budget review by the organising committee, which had put the initial cost at £373m.

The increase – making the Games £23m more expensive than the cost of building the Scottish Parliament – was described as "appalling" by the Scottish Conservatives' deputy leader Murdo Fraser.

"This is every bit as bad as we feared and it is no wonder people believe that every single public works programme runs over-budget," he said. "At any moment, it would be a problem, but in these difficult economic times, it is simply appalling."