Calls for Six Nations to be protected as free-to-air TV institution

The Government should ensure the Six Nations remains on free-to-air television by placing the tournament in the top bracket of its listed events, a parliamentary committee has said.

The annual tournament has to date always been wholly available free to air in the UK, but is not protected from remaining so in the future, in the same way that the Olympic Games and the men’s and women’s football World Cups and European Championships are, by virtue of being Group A listed events.

The Welsh Affairs Committee insists it is time that changed to help Welsh rugby “rediscover its soul”, in a new report published on Friday.

“Live sports broadcasting should strive to reach the widest possible audience, which is best achieved through free-to-air coverage. This is especially so for Welsh rugby union, which needs to rediscover its soul and aim to reach the maximum number of people in Wales,” the report said.

“We do not believe that the listed events regime currently accurately reflects the importance placed by supporters on certain competitions.

“We recommend that the Government adds the Six Nations to Group A of the Listed Sporting Events, to ensure its status on terrestrial TV.”

The committee also said reports that the Rugby World Cup could move behind a paywall were “worrying”. Currently, only the final of that tournament is a listed event.

The committee also recommended that the remit of broadcasting regulator Ofcom be amended to ensure it can designate listed events, and specified non-listed events, as requiring live Welsh language commentary, including Wales matches at Euro 2028, which Wales will co-host.

The Football Association of Wales was asked to write to the committee before February next year to outline the representations it is making to UEFA concerning continued coverage of the national team’s qualifiers on free-to-air Welsh language channel S4C.

The channel had an agreement in place with streaming service Viaplay to show Wales’ matches in the next two Nations League campaigns, their 2026 World Cup qualifiers and their Euro 2028 qualifiers.

However, Viaplay has since announced its withdrawal from the UK market, and the committee wants the FAW to work with UEFA to ensure that whichever broadcaster buys the rights, the agreement with S4C is replicated.

The committee also said it was “disappointed” that no Welsh event was currently part of the Group A list, and called on the UK Government to work with the Welsh Government and broadcasters to discuss how the listed events regime could be amended to support a specific list of Welsh events.