Cricket: No Tv Cricket Review Until 2008

A review of listed events, which are guaranteed to be shown on free-to-air terrestrial channels, is likely to take place around 2008-09, the culture secretary Tessa Jowell has pledged.

It means the review of the list of sporting "crown jewels" would take place before the next contract for domestic cricket coverage is negotiated. Sky's exclusive £220m deal, which begins next year, expires in 2009.

In an interview with the Guardian Jowell said the review would be linked to the change in broadcasting prompted by the switch-over to digital television, which is due to be completed by 2012. The pledge will not satisfy the growing calls for a speedier review, demanded by the Keep Cricket Free campaign and supported in a Commons early day motion tabled by the Labour MP John Grogan.

Jowell said: "We are heading for a period of almost unprecedented change in TV with the switch from analogue to digital, so ask this question in 2008-09, once the digital switch-over has begun, and it won't apply in the same way because there will not be terrestrial TV as we know it now.

"This is something I am looking at very closely at the moment and I think there will be a case at the point where we get to the digital switch-over to review the system of listing sporting events."

The review would consider whether the list - which includes the Olympics, World Cup, FA Cup final, Grand National and Wimbledon - was still the "best way to ensure that the widest public access is provided to national and international sporting events that really matter to people and for which there are big audiences".

The last review of the listed events was carried out in 1998, when cricket was moved to a B-list, which guaranteed only terrestrial highlights. Lord MacLaurin, former chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, believed the deal with Sky breached an understanding with Chris Smith, the then culture secretary, that some Test cricket would remain on terrestrial TV.

Adrian Sanders, a Liberal Democrat MP and member of the culture, media and sport select committee, has written to Jowell asking her to publish the minutes of the meetings between Smith and MacLaurin.

Jowell said the ECB had been caught between a "rock and a hard place". The ECB's dilemma was that 80% of its income comes from broadcasting rights and the money was necessary to increase participation in cricket.

She said the BBC had not bid for the new contract and Channel 4 had offered much less than Sky. "I suppose we would not be having this debate had not cricket come alive with our success in the Ashes."

She said the ECB would have had to say it was more important to be on terrestrial TV, which would have meant accepting a lower bid and £96m less to invest in the England team and grassroots cricket over the four years of the deal.

"It is important to be absolutely clear that Sky won that competition in a completely proper and transparent way."

≥ Tomorrow in Sport: Tessa Jowell's first major newspaper interview since London's successful 2012 Olympics bid