Squiggle, the likelyhood of the government (of any main party) permitting the BBC to have a dedicated sports channel is remote. The charter dictates the nature of the channels and BBC 1 and 2 are required to show a mix of programmes.
There may be big changes to the BBC from the end of this year as the charter requires them to cancel the guarantee that children’s, sport and non-news related current affairs programmes will be able to be made inhouse - ie sportting programmes will have to be put out for tender for external producers to be able to make them. That could have huge impact as to what the BBC is able to show in terms of sport, and also childrens programmes. I'm not sure what is meant by non-news related current affairs.