Ian Livingstone, the chief executive of UK telecommunications company BT, said he was “minded to appeal” a court decision that blocked efforts to force pay-television broadcaster BSkyB from lowering wholesale prices for its sports programming, according to the Financial Times newspaper.
BT has until November 26 to appeal the decision by the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal, which overturned a ruling by UK media regulator Ofcom that Sky had to offer premium sports channels at wholesale prices to competitors.
BT, which is planning to launch two of its own sports channels next year, currently pays £19.07 (€23.84/$30.28) per month per customer to carry the Sky Sports 1 and 2 channels. The telecommunications company acquired live rights for 38 matches per season from English football’s Premier League in a three-year deal, from 2013-14 to 2015-16.
Sky, which will remain the league’s primary UK live domestic rights-holder for the three-year cycle by showing 116 games per season, will consider acquiring BT’s channels through a wholesale arrangement, according to the broadcaster’s chief financial officer, Andrew Griffith.
He added that the cost of acquiring Premier League rights for the next three-year cycle would squeeze Sky’s financial margins. “There’s clearly a little bit of discontinuity with the Premier League,” he said. “There a step uplift next year and then it’s amortised over the next few years.”