Virgin Media UK Confirms Talks to Acquire BTSport TV Content

Cable operator Virgin Media has confirmed that they’re in final negotiations with BT to hopefully bring the new BTSport channels to customers on their own broadband and TV bundles via a new carriage deal.

The deal, which could be signed before the 1st August launch of BTSport (here), is widely being seen as an attempt to both solve the loss of ESPN to BT and to stave off Sky Broadband’s recent offer to effectively pay the cost of a BTSport subscription for 12 months if Virgin Media’s customers adopt one of Sky’s own TV, phone and broadband bundles.

A VirginMedia Spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk:

“We’re always looking to bring the best possible value and choice of great quality content to our customers and we’re talking to BT about how we could make the forthcoming BT Sport package available.

We’ll keep you up to date with any developments.”

Clearly Virgin Media won’t want to lose customers in the growing battle between Sky and BT over sport content, especially Premier League matches, and will be hoping that they can strike a reasonable deal that their existing customers would find attractive. It’s currently unclear whether the solution would be a bundled or standalone upgrade but we should know soon.

Take note that the BTSport service is free to BT’s own broadband customers but otherwise it’s £12 a month on rival platforms.