Foxtel reduces price of accessing sports channels

Australian pay-television provider Foxtel has confirmed that it will cut the price of its basic cable-television subscriptions by a half and will freeze the price of its sports package.

From November 3, the entry price of Foxtel’s basic channel package will be A$25 (€18.02/$23.76) per month, rather than A$50.

With the sports package staying at A$25 per month, sports fans will pay at least A$50 per month to access sports programming – a decrease of between A$20 and A$25 on the previous monthly price.

According to reports, the prices would be available to existing as well as new customers.

“We recognise that many Australians feel that Foxtel is too expensive to fit comfortably into their budget," Foxtel chief executive Richard Freudenstein said.

Patrick Delany (pictured), chief executive of Fox Sports, said that the Australian pay-television will add three new sports channels to the Foxtel platform and drop motorsport-focused channel Speed and adventure sports channel Fuel.

“The main thing with those small channels was that people were really only going there if there were hardcore fans of those sports,” Delany said, according to the Australian Financial Review newspaper. “This will change that and we will have some flexibility in putting sports across the channels now.”