Sky Sports may be coming to BT TV
BT is hoping a decision from Ofcom will force Sky to reduce the cost of their premium content such as Sky Sports and Sky Movies when sold to other providers on a wholesale basis. Now, these channels are only available via a Sky or Virgin subscription package, and are quite costly. Virgin is thought to actually lose money on them with the current costs at an average of £20.72.
Ofcom’s board will be meeting soon to discuss the price Sky can sell these channels and a report is expected at the end of March with the decision. BT is hoping the price will fall and they will be able to sell Sky Sports at a price in the “mid teens”, which would be a big discount compared to the £25.50 for Sky Sports now, or £34.50 for all 4 Sky Sports channels.
Any price reduction would be good for BT as they are now allowed to marked bundled packages to customers as a triple play service. Being able to offer premium content, such as Premiership Football from the Sky Sports channels would help them increase their BT Vision customers from about 436,000 up into the millions they desire.
Gavin Patterson, Chief Executive at BT retail said: “We are looking at a range of scenarios at the moment. I wouldn’t want to give too much away but suffice to say we want to make it very attractive to customers. At the moment, if you are an avid sports fan you can really only buy sports on the so-called buy-through-model – you effectively have to buy basic programming and then premium sports on top. That isn’t good for customers; it doesn’t give them choice. We believe that many of our customers really want access to premium sports but they don’t necessarily want all the basic channels you have to get there.”
Sky is planning to fight any decision that will go against them, with talk of legal action if they are forced to reduce wholesale prices.