The BBC has pledged to do its utmost to protect Britain's top sporting events from being bought up by satellite broadcasters.

A decade ago the payment of a BBC licence fee guaranteed television viewers armchair access to unrivalled live coverage of the nation's sporting events.

Premiership football has been one of the BBC's casualties

But since then, the Corporation has lost out to BSkyB, ITV and Channel 5 in a whole range of television battles.

Viewers who keep their sets tuned to the BBC can now no longer watch live domestic football, England's home rugby union matches, Formula One motor racing, major boxing occasions, Super League rugby league and several top race meetings.

Critics have accused the BBC of not investing in sport, with Grandstand now featuring live netball internationals, and most of the clips shown on the channel's recent Sports Review of the Year "borrowed" from other stations.

'Head-to-head' with ITV

But the BBC has pledged a 1998 fightback, highlighting the "extensive" range of live sport that will still be seen on the channel over the next 12 months.

England's home rugby fixtures have been bought by Sky

The BBC is considering whether to go head-to-head with ITV in coverage of England and Scotland's matches at next year's World Cup finals by refusing to divide up the screening of many games as before.

Pressure is also being brought to bear on the Government to increase the number of "crown jewel" events protected for terrestrial TV.

The controller of televised sport for BBC Broadcast, Jonathan Martin, said the BBC would continue to broadcast as many top sporting events as the budget would allow.

"We've been defending a huge portfolio," he said. "We have had major losses, as in football, but still have a regular prime-time football programme in Match of the Day, for which we have paid four times as much, from £4.5m to £17m, to keep."

Mr Martin said other prime examples were the US Masters golf, retained despite a higher bid from BSkyB, and the Open, in which Channel 4 were also interested.

But the director of programmes at ITV, David Liddiment, said the idea that the BBC could not afford to pay for top sporting events was a poor excuse.

"They have £2bn to spend as they see fit," he said. "It is a question of priorities. There is no reason why they could not have chosen to spend more on sport and less on their new 24-hour news channel."

"They've decided, as a matter of policy, not to invest in major live sporting events such as football and motor racing, while we have."

The BBC, however, claims it is not able to fight the sports war on a level playing field, arguing that ITV concentrates only on two main sports, and BSkyB has considerably larger resources at its disposal.

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