UK telco BT has said it expects to offer the sports channel bouquet of rival BSkyB at cut-price by the start of the 2010-11 English Premier League season.
UK newspaper The Independent reports that Marc Watson, the new chief executive of BT’s pay-television arm BT Vision, said the company could be in a position to charge consumers only £15 per month, compared to BSkyB’s current £35 per month charge.
Watson said he was basing his claim on the latest report by UK television regulator Ofcom into the country’s pay-television market. Ofcom has suggested that BSkyB may be forced to cut by up to 30 per cent the wholesale prices it charges rival platforms for its premium channels.
“I want to add Sky Sports to our offering, there's no question about that,” Watson told The Independent. “I would hope to have them by the beginning of season 2010-2011. It would be one of the things that would give us a step change in terms of our proposition. As you can imagine, lots of our customers ask about it, and we'd like to be able to offer it to them.”
