Options
BT Sport now considering 3 channels.
jamcambs
Posts: 584 Forum Member
✭✭
Todays media speculation says
BT is planning to launch not one, not two, but three sports channels, dedicated to football, rugby and other sports content.
According to a piece in the Financial Times, BT will launch a channel for both footie and rugby and is considering having a third channel free as a portal for on-demand matches and pay-per-view games.
Apparently BT is expected to base its sports operation in the Olympic Park.
BT is planning to launch not one, not two, but three sports channels, dedicated to football, rugby and other sports content.
According to a piece in the Financial Times, BT will launch a channel for both footie and rugby and is considering having a third channel free as a portal for on-demand matches and pay-per-view games.
Apparently BT is expected to base its sports operation in the Olympic Park.
0
Comments
BT secures Sky slots for sports channels20 November, 2012 | By Alex Farber
BT has secured two EPG slots on the Sky platform in preparation for the launch of its sports channels.
The broadcaster, which has secured rights to air FA Premier League football, international football and Aviva Premiership rugby packages, has acquired the placeholders on the pay TV platform, which it has temporarily branded as Sailing 1 and Sailing 2.
Currently in testing and yet to go live, BT will rebrand and launch the channels next year, with viewers able to dial a phone number in order to access the content.
Due to BT’s existing infrastructure it is able to manage the customer relationship directly, rather than rely on Sky to re-sell its channels.
A BT spokesman confirmed the EPG slots had been secured ahead of the launch.
“Sailing 1 and 2 are placeholders for the new BT Sport channel, which will be launching next year,” he said. “For test purposes they will be showing sailing, treasure diving and kayaking content.”
Olympic Park
Separately BT is understood to be close to agreeing a deal to move its sports production business into offices in the Olympic Park.
Other potential locations mooted, including the Shard and MediaCityUK were believed to be under consideration but have since been dropped, although a final contract to with the Stratford-based location owners is yet to be signed
http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/broadcasters/bt-secures-sky-slots-for-sports-channels/5049180.article?blocktitle=LATEST-NEWS&contentID=870
The actual story was that ITV Sport were rumoured to be interested in producing BT's coverage.
Wow, there is going to be an awful lot of filler going on most of the time.
Interestingly today's FT article says BT is planning to "offer" 10 rugby games to ITV.
(No link - partial paywall I think).
I saw a similar article in the London Evening Standard a couple of weeks ago, the link to which is here:
http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/rugby/exclusive-live-topflight-rugby-heading-for-itv-as-part-of-new-tv-deal-8193505.html
What channel numbers will they be given? I think EPG position is massively important when starting up a new channel.
Call me lazy, but I tend to stop at Eurosport when channel flicking. Have no interest in Motors TV or ATR, even though I might be interested in what ESPN might have on.
I always thought that ESPN should've been moved up to 409 when the F1 channel launched and things shifted about a bit. That way they'd have at least been on Page 1 of the Sports tab.
By Daniel Thomas and Ben Fenton
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7ced35e8-326b-11e2-916a-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2Cm9F1q4C
If BT wants to obtain an EPG number (or numbers) other than at the bottom of the Sports section then it is going to have to purchase that number from an existing owner.
I guess IF ESPN were to close any channel(s) then BT may try to buy those number(s). But if not it's not immediately obvious what other options BT have.
I would have thought BT would want to avoid being at the bottom of the EPG if at all possible.
Any possibility that they will not even bother with SD and just have HD channels? What reasons are there to have SD channels given that the percentage of Sky/VM customers with HD capacity must be 95%+?
I won't be subscribing to these BT Sports channels if we only have SD available on Sky , then again I may not bother anyway Sky Sports has more than enough on.
Not sure on the numbers, but there's still plenty of subscribers/viewers viewing via SD broadcasts. It's certainly not 95% HD viewing.
Well BT are likely to continue to offer at least Sky Sports 1 & 2 as well as their own channels, and my hope is that their base TV package will be much cheaper than Sky's (as it is right now).
This should allow a significantly cheaper 'top sports' package from BT than from Sky (base subscription + Sports subscription(s)). I also expect at least some of these channels to be available over IPTV/Youview by the launch date. If all this happens, we will at last have real choice in Pay TV, real competition and not before time. Good luck to BT, I say - they are one of very few companies with deep enough pockets to pull this off successfully.
Indeed, they no doubt just took the opportunity to pick up two SD slots that became available and will use them as placeholders (which they are required to). Channel 4 did the same thing prior to 4Seven launching with More4+2, they merely bought an SD slot from another broadcaster. They haven't bought placeholders for More4 HD and Film4 HD though!
HD slots are readily available direct from Sky so I would imagine they'll buy them nearer to launch.
No problem with BT as a platform and I welcome competition , as a current Sky subscriber I'm merely stating that if BT Sports is SD only on the Sky platform they'll not see a penny of my money. BT can offer the best range but unfortunately for me no infinity means its simply not currently a viable option. Hopefully Mersey70 and Digi Man are correct and the BT Sports HD will be available through Sky.
I'm sure they will have it all available in HD, on all platforms they use. Not doing that just wouldn't make sense, they seem to be thinking big and HD would be essential to that. But for me, I want it all on IPTV, which might help to keep the subscriptions down.
If they do HD as standard, it would be a good selling point and could be the thing that finally persuades Sky to drop the HD subscription fee?
Too many third party broadcasters getting a share for it to be dropped, at least in the short term.
Don't forget that BT subscribers only get Sky Sports in SD.
It wouldn't surprise me. It'll be in the PL's interests to stipulate something like this.
With reference to the other football/BT thread, if Sky decide to move over a substantial number of PL games to SS3 it will mean that BT customers will not being able to see as many games as Sky customers.