THE BBC has refused to reveal the number of complaints it received over its coverage of the Commonwealth Games.
The 2026 Commonwealth Games were held in Glasgow between July 23 and August 2, but they were not aired live on the public service broadcaster in English.
Instead, the games could only be watched live on subscription-based TNT Sports, which outbid the BBC.
The BBC has insisted it did put forward a bid for the Games – although it has refused to disclose how much it offered – with reports suggesting it offered just £900,000 for the TV rights, which was only 9% of what it paid to broadcast the Games in 2022.
Meanwhile, TNT Sports paid around £5 million, and broadcast more than 600 hours of live coverage.
While the BBC did secure the rights to live broadcast TV coverage of the Games in Gaelic, it was the first time that the Commonwealth Games had not been shown on free-to-air English-language BBC channels since 1954.
The Herald now reports that the BBC has refused to disclose how many complaints it received over its coverage of the Games, leading to accusations the broadcaster is "hiding behind" Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation.
In response to an FOI request submitted by the paper, the BBC claimed the information was exempt as it related to the broadcaster's "journalism, art and literature".
The BBC said that while the FOI Act 2000 generally gives a right of access to recorded information held by public authorities, which includes the corporation, the act also "reflects the critical importance of these broadcasters in UK society".
It adds that "the law recognises that if the FOI Act applied to information held for the purposes of creating the BBC's output (TV, radio, online etc), or information that supports and is closely associated with these creative activities, the BBC's ability to deliver its mission would be severely hampered".
SNP MSP David Linden told The Herald that "the whole situation stinks", adding that it "leaves the BBC with questions to answer about why it made no serious attempt to broadcast live coverage of the Glasgow Games".
He continued: “Viewers were rightly outraged that for the first time in 70 years the Games were not available to watch on free to-air-TV and BBC bosses are now hiding behind FOI legislation to stop the level of anger at this decision being made public.
“The BBC must now come clean on whether it bid to broadcast the Games, how much it bid and how many people complained about its decision to abandon the Games when they came to Scotland.”
In response, the BBC said that it did bid for the rights to the Games but was "unfortunately" unable to match TNT's bid for English language TV coverage.
The broadcaster declined to disclose or comment on rights negotiations, and would not go into further detail on the figure it offered to secure live broadcast rights.
