Virgin Media now keeps the ESPN channel on its service and significantly improves its sports range with BT's other two channels. One of its first football matches, Rangers versus Brechin City, averaged 24,000 viewers – about half the number that attended the match.īarford refers to the deal between BT and Virgin as "sleeping with the enemy", with the two rivals best interests served by making a pact in the battle against BSkyB. "The deal brings a much wider audience to the channels, improving advertising potential and avoiding embarrassing stories in the press about low viewing figures on flagship programs," said James Barford, a TV analyst at Enders Analysis.įollowing the launch of the TV channels on 1 August the first edition of high profile signing Clare Balding's weekly sports magazine show averaged just 1,200 viewers. ![]() Under the terms of the deal about 3 million Virgin Media customers who are on its XL package will immediately have access to the channels for free.Ĭustomers on other packages will be able to add BT Sport's portfolio, which will air programming including Premiership rugby. ![]() "We are keen to make our services as widely available as possible and to do so via wholesale arrangements." "BT has made a large investment in BT Sport and this is an important commercial agreement for us," said the BT TV chief executive, Marc Watson. The timing of the deal is crucial coming just days before the Premier League season kicks off, giving BT much more of a fighting chance to start recouping the £738m it paid for Premier League TV rights and prove a worthy competitor to BSkyB.
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