BT Vision plans three sports TV channels and pay-per-view for Premier League football
UPDATE: BT Sports details confirmed: free for BT Broadband users, £12/£15 a month for Sky customers
BT is set to offer three channels of sport on its BT Vision service, having secured Premier League football, Premiership rugby and other European football rights.
The rumours open up the possibility of various wholesale deals, which would see football and rugby content, currently broadcast on Sky, sold back to Sky or Virgin.
As well as live content spread across three channels, BT Vision looks set to offer on-demand and pay-per-view content, too, raising the potential of PPV Premier League football.
BT has paid £738m for two packages of 38 Premier League football matches, starting with the 2013/14 season, while also buying up the rights to Premiership rugby.
The FT reports that BT wants to offer programmes in the style of popular BBC shows of yore, Grandstand and Rugby Special.
Jake Humphrey, currently the host of BBC's Formula One coverage, has already been poached to lead BT Vision's Premier League football coverage.
The move aims to bolster the appeal of the BT Vision TV service, while in turn bringing more customers to BT's telecoms and fibre optic broadband services.
BT Vision has also joined forces with YouView, launching its own BT Vision content on top of the standard on-demand, internet TV offering from YouView.
BT Vision is also offering a free YouView box, worth £299, to customers who sign-up to BT Infinity, the company's fibre optic broadband service.
Published 13.06.2012
BT has secured the rights to live Premier League football for the very first time, sharing rights with BSkyB in a deal worth over £3bn.
ESPN, which currently shares live matches with BSkyB, will no longer show any matches in the new deal, which runs from 2013-2016, which could spell trouble for the US broadcaster in the UK.
BT said it would launch a new football channel to cover the games, and planned to supply new interactive features over its BT fibre network.
The new deal marks a 70% rise in the price of the rights package, up from £1.773bn, with BT saying it was paying £246m per season for its share.
BSkyB continues to have the bulk of the games, showing 116 of the 154 live matches – two of the seven packages that were on offer.
BT will show 28 Saturday lunchtime games and 10 matches on bank holidays or midweek.
Next season's games will be the last year in the current deal, with BSkyB and ESPN continuing to share the rights.
Written by Joe Cox
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Comments
BT have just secured two slots on the Sky EPG for their sports channels
http://advanced-television.com/2012/11/21/bt-sports-channels-secure-sky-slots/
Sky increased their subscription by £2.50 per month from September one year before the new premier League deal. So the increase is equivalent to £1.26 billion over the next four years seiing them through to the end of the contract. On top of this Sky also changed the basic package deal to existing customers adding another £3.75 per month if you take entertainment extra. so equivalent to another mind numbing £1.6 billion over this period. PAY TV is a joke as all the major sporting rights including production costs SKY have purchased are equivalent to less than £15 per month per subscriber. On the entertainment side, their flagship Sky Atlantic is made up of HBO content that cost them £150 million over 5 years, a cool 25 pence per month.
Unfortunately there are too many people willing to throw money at PAY TV without understanding the real costs involved.
Yes Sky put their subs up every year, but a couple of quid increase doesn't even begin to cover the extra £1.25billion they've had to pay to keep the rights this time round...
Sky always put subscription prices up every year apart from when they did not last yeah(price freeze).it only goes up by £2 anyway so 50p per week then(waiting for bigboss to make a comment lol)
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Well the new advert does say some prices will increase from Sept 1st –As I’ve said before, they can’t be far off the limit of what they can charge for movies , sports before those that can afford it start to question its justification while maintaining an affordability to those who can’t.
& don’t even get me started on the HD Charge, a natural evolution rather than a reinvention following an established pattern set by the BBC & ITV for the previous 50yrs I suppose they’ve got to come-up with new & inventive ways to fleece us.
Memo to Sky, absolutely fantastic product wrapped-up in a company most can’t warm to.
If you want my advice & I know you don’t, win our hearts before you increase your prices, otherwise buy a couple of shares in an Australian Tin Mine or Russian Gas Field, anything, in the hope of turning a profit from other areas to help support your customers.
The Golden Goose can't have much life left in it.
70% increase in broadcsting rights won't be good news for UK footy fans who will end up paying the bill for this.
It is a sobering thought that it is cheaper to support a German team (including travel and cost of a season ticket) than a Premier league team.
Premier League + UK Football clubs = Greedy B@stards.
*cross-finger that a pay-per-view channel will be made available on the freesat platform*
According to Broadband TV News, BT will be looking to distribute its new football-focus channel to other platforms.
http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2012/06/13/sky-bt-win-live-premier-league-rights/
Good question GSB, we don't know yet, we're seeking clarification. Suspect BT might want to keep it to themselves.
anyone know if sky customers will get access to this new bt chanel?
Wonder how long it will be before Sky put their subs up, given how much they're having to pay out to keep the rights...
And could be the final nail in the coffin for ESPN in the UK
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/45597/espn-could-quite-uk-fa-cup