BT in talks to put sports channels on Sky and UPC

BT Ireland is in advanced talks with Sky, UPC and a number of other companies to make its new sports channels available to pay-television subscribers in the Republic. The telecoms company and media rights-holder said it believed deals would be in place before the start of the next football season.

In the UK, where BT sells consumer broadband as well as pay-television services, BT Group plans to offer its three sports channels – BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN – free to broadband subscribers in a bid to expand its customer base.

But it needs to make different arrangements to show its content in the Republic, where it operates only in the wholesale and business broadband markets.

The group said its BT Sport team was “in discussion with a number of companies” to make the three channels available on the Sky and UPC pay- television platforms. It said it was “fully confident that BT Sport will be available in the Republic of Ireland before the soccer season begins”.

BT Ireland’s revenues climbed 4 per cent to £740 million (€876 million) for the year to the end of March, while its profit before tax and other items was flat on the previous year. The company does not publish a profit figure for the Irish division.

“We have delivered a solid year of growth in revenues and maintained profit and cash flow in a challenging economic environment,” said BT Ireland chief executive Colm O’Neill.

BT’s wholesale division now provides network services to more than 50 communications companies, with contracts signed last year including deals with Sky Ireland, AirSpeed Telecom and UTV. Its business division also won a number of contracts in the public sector.

The company said it had completed the local loop unbundling of 88 Eircom telephone exchanges. This gives BT's wholesale customers the ability to offer broadband with speeds of up to 24 Mbps to a footprint of 900,000 phone lines.

BT said it had made “significant investment” in its network infrastructure. However, a “sub-loop unbundling” trial of fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband in Dún Laoghaire and a number of other locations – which could potentially offer speeds of 80 Mbps – did not go ahead last year as planned.

“We are working with Eircom to do a trial of those kinds of services,” Mr O’Neill said. He described the advent of Eircom’s new efibre broadband, which will deliver speeds of up to 70 Mbps, as “a good development” for the market.

BT Group’s share price jumped 10 per cent to hit a 5½-year high in London yesterday, after it posted full-year results that beat expectations. Its core profit rose 2 per cent to £6.2 billion, despite a 5 per cent drop in revenue.

The 167-year-old former monopoly is seeking to capitalise on its position of strength in the British telecoms market by entering the sports broadcasting business, upsetting competitors by agreeing Premier League football and other sports rights deals totalling £1 billion.

In February, it agreed to buy ESPN’s British and Ireland television channels business. As part of this deal, it will continue to operate one ESPN-branded channel. The three BT Sport channels are due to launch in Britain on August 1st.