Marc Watson, the chief executive of BT’s television arm, is to leave the UK telecommunications company, it has been announced.
Watson has led BT’s television business since 2009 and was at the heart of the launch and establishment of BT Sport, which has sought to tackle BSkyB’s dominance of the UK pay-television sports market since its formation in August.
Watson has been central to BT’s successful negotiations for exclusively live rights to key properties such as English Premier League football and rugby union’s English Premiership. In November, BT signed its latest major deal by acquiring exclusive live rights for the Uefa Champions League and Europa League club football competitions in a deal worth about £299m (€352.4m/$478.9m) per season, from 2015-16 to 2017-18.
BT said today that Watson is leaving to “explore new opportunities” outside the company. The company added that the search for a new managing director of BT TV & Sport is well underway with BT considering external as well as internal candidates. BT added that an appointment will be made in “due course” and the successful candidate will report into John Petter, BT Consumer chief executive.
Petter said: “I would like to thank Marc for helping us bring BT TV to a large audience and for helping us to launch BT Sport with the very best live sporting action including top tier football, rugby, tennis and MotoGP rights. He leaves with our best wishes for the future.”