[michael21]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...nnis-tv-rights

The BBC's live sports coverage has taken another hit, with ITV snatching away the rights to the French Open tennis tournament.

ITV's first ever live coverage of one of the big four grand slam tennis tournaments will be broadcast from 2012, as part of a three-year deal.

ITV1 will show the men's and women's finals from the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, along with live coverage of two other matches during the two-week tournament.

Digital channel ITV4 and ITV.com will broadcast about six hours coverage of each day's play along with highlights.

ITV has secured the UK free-to-air rights to the tournament. Europsport previously held UK pay-TV rights, with a new deal pending.

The ITV controller of sport, Niall Sloane, said: "It's the first time that a grand slam has been shown live on ITV and with around six hours of coverage over each day of the tournament we'll be offering viewers more free-to-air coverage of the tournament than ever before."

The loss of the French Open comes a day after the BBC signed a deal to keep Wimbledon coverage until at least 2017 – a far bigger TV rights prize for the corporation.

However, the BBC is seeking to reduce what it spends on sports rights as part of the "Delivering Quality First" cost-cutting initiative and earlier this year agreed to share live TV coverage of Formula One motor racing with BSkyB from next year.

The BBC will only show half the F1 races live, with Sky broadcasting every grand prix plus qualifying sessions.

MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee will question director general Mark Thompson and the BBC Trust chairman, Lord Patten, about the deal when they appear before MPs to discuss the corporation's governance in December.

The BBC has also lost live TV rights to the Paralympics and IAAF World Athletics Championships (both to Channel 4) and the US Masters golf tournament (to Sky).

In radio, from August the number of live Premier League games broadcast live by BBC Radio 5 Live was reduced by a third, with TalkSport and Absolute Radio picking up the rights.

The BBC also bowed out of offering live coverage of the recent Rugby World Cup for the first time since the tournament began in 1987, with TalkSport taking over.

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