Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that fans can watch major sporting events online.

The Government believes that certain sporting events of national interest should be shown on free-to-air television so that they can be enjoyed by as wide an audience as possible.

We want to ensure that as viewing habits change and technology evolves the regulatory framework remains fit for purpose.

Our Broadcasting White Paper confirmed our intention to undertake a review to look at whether the scope of the listed events regime should be extended to include digital rights. The Government is speaking to stakeholders to look at whether in the face of technological change, the objectives of the existing regime are still being met and whether digital rights should be included in the regime. The review will need to balance the ability for audiences to watch national sporting events at no additional cost with the ability for sporting organisations to generate revenues from sports rights to re-invest in their sports at all levels.

The Terms of Reference for the review can be found here.