The BBC has confirmed that Tony Livesy is to “step back” from his radio show following allegations about his previous career as editor-in-chief of David Sullivan’s Sport Newspapers, raised in last night’s Panorama exposé of inappropriate sexual conduct claims against his former boss.
Burnley-born Radio 5 Live regular Livesy spent 18 years at the Daily and Sunday Sport, joining in 1987 as a sports reporter on the Sunday Sport under then-sports editor, England and West Ham legend Bobby Moore, and rising to editor of that title, then editor of the daily version, group managing editor, and ultimately editor-in-chief of both the Daily and Sunday versions.
Livesy was directly named in last night’s documentary, by a woman who described an unwanted sexual encounter with Sullivan during a meeting she said was set up by Livesey, although he told The Times that he had “no recollection” of introducing her to Sullivan, that it was “not part” of his role to introduce women to Sullivan and that he had “practically zero” contact with anyone appearing in the paper.
Livesy was absent from his usual evening slot on 5 Live last night, and is scheduled to be missing again tonight, although this was understood to be planned absence. Initial reports suggested Livesy would return for his usual slot at 10.30pm tomorrow (Wednesday 10th June), however that is now not the case.
A BBC spokesperson said: “The Panorama investigation included allegations about Tony Livesey which we take seriously. We also note Tony has firmly denied the allegations. He has asked to step back from presenting his radio show for a short period and we will be considering the matters raised by the programme. We will not be commenting further at this stage.”
There are likely to be more awkward moments ahead for senior staff at Sullivan’s Sport, the Manchester-based tabloid that shook up the newspaper industry in the eighties and nineties with its constant diet of sex, scandals, and ridiculous news stories that were virtually indistinguishable from satirical comics of the time like Viz (Statue of Elvis Found on the Moon, 3-Inch Dog Ate my Missus, etc) following last night’s Panorama investigation into allegations of improper conduct by founder and owner Sullivan.
The episode, the result of a two-year joint investigation with The Times, revealed seven accusations of sexual misconduct from women who had encountered Sullivan in a work capacity, including cases of unwanted sexual advances and encounters, and promises to advance the careers of young women, from aspiring journalists to young models, if they had sex with the owner and billionaire pornographer.
Sullivan had turned his attention to the newspaper industry in part as a means of promoting his own porn empire – by the 1980s he already controlled half of the UK’s top shelf magazine market including titles like Playbirds and Whitehouse, and had already branched out into pornographic films, sex shops and erotic dancing clubs.
READ MORE: AI overviews and Meta algorithms in the frame as LBG Media lowers forecasts despite healthy revenue growth
Sullivan stepped down as director and co-chair of West Ham FC at the weekend ahead of the Panorama broadcast. The decision was blamed on “serious historical allegations” about his conduct, with Sullivan saying: “I categorically deny these claims.”
Reports today suggest that the recently created Independent Football Regulator could force Sullivan to sell his 38.8% share in the club altogether if the allegations are found to be true, under the “honesty and integrity” assessments that are part of the new regulator’s remit.
READ MORE: Bauer Media Audio bags Fire TV Channels UK launch slot
Both the Daily and Sunday Sport’s circulation peaked in 2005, with the daily edition achieving 189,473 daily sales and the Sunday version reaching a high of 167,473 copies. Sullivan sold the titles in 2007 for £40 million, and circulation declined markedly thereafter, with the new owner Sport Media Group withdrawing the titles from official ABC auditing in 2009 as the rise of the internet began to bite into physical sales, with both selling around the 70,000 mark in their final audits.
It eventually folded in 2011, but it wasn’t over yet – Sullivan reacquired the Sunday Sport for £50,000 a few weeks later and the paper returned to newsstands, with a Midweek Sport (Wednesdays) and Weekend Sport (Fridays) and a digital edition following from 2013. The online version was taken down in July 2025 when the Online Safety Act came into law, requiring that it provide age verification for users accessing the service, and to this day a message on the site encourages readers to buy physical copies from newsagents, with all three titles still publishing in physical form as of June 2026.
David Sullivan image: Hilton Teper/English Wikipedia/Creative Commons
