WTCC coverage in the UK under threat due to broadcaster row

Coverage of the World Touring Car Championship in the UK could be severely restricted in 2017, as broadcaster Eurosport’s owner Discovery has threatened to pull its portfolio of channels from Sky in the UK.

Discovery UK’s suite of channels are mainly documentary stations, but the channel also owns Eurosport and Quest TV, which are the broadcasters of two FIA championships, the World Touring Car Championship and the World Rallycross Championship in the UK.

Discovery’s position is that it is paid less by Sky than it was ten years ago, and with Sky announcing profits of £1.1 billion on Wednesday, Discovery has hit back at Sky making cuts to their new contract.

“We believe Sky is using what we consider to be its dominant market position to further its own commercial interest over those of viewers and independent broadcasters,” said Susanna Dinnage, managing director of Discovery UK. “The vitality of independent broadcasters like Discovery and plurality in TV is under threat.”

Sky has informed its customers the channels are likely to be unavailable from next Wednesday, promoting the Nat Geo, History and its own Sky Sports channels instead.

“Despite our best efforts to reach a sensible agreement, we, like many other platforms and broadcasters across Europe, have found the price expectations for the Discovery portfolio to be completely unrealistic,” said a Sky statement.

“Sky has a strong track record of understanding the value of the content we acquire on behalf of our customers, and as a result we’ve taken the decision not to renew this contract on the terms offered.”

“We have been overpaying Discovery for years and are not going to anymore. We will now move to redeploy the same amount of money into content we know our customers value.”

Discovery UK has appealed to its customers to make their dissatisfaction with Sky’s position known on social media ahead of the likely shutdown on February 1st.

With Eurosport no longer on the Sky platform, 12 million British customers will no longer have access to the World Touring Car Championship with their television package.

Eurosport will continue to broadcast on Sky’s rivals, Virgin Media and BT TV in the UK, as well as be available on its own Eurosport Player service, for which there is a charge of £5.99 per month .

The WTCC’s Premium TV service, which became free at the half-way point of the 2016 season, has been quietly discontinued.