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BT Sport free for another season

April 30, 2014

Szczesny-footballMillions of UK homes will be able to watch BT Sport for free for another season following BT’s decision to continue offering the channels for free to new and re-contracting BT Broadband customers.

BT has revealed that around five million homes now take BT Sport, just nine months after the channels went live last August. This makes BT Sport one of the fastest growing TV services ever launched in the UK.

Around three million of those homes take the service directly from BT – either via satellite, BT TV or the BT Sport App alone – with the remainder taking the service via wholesale deals struck by BT.

John Petter, BT Consumer chief executive said: “Fans have been the winners with BT Sport. Millions of homes have enjoyed the very best sporting action for free. We said we would shake up the market and we have done just that. The great news for fans is that BT Sport will remain free with BT Broadband for another season, during which we will broadcast live action from the new European rugby tournaments. There has never been a better time to switch to BT Broadband so I would encourage sports fans to sign up.”

BT Sport has had a strong debut season in which it has shown dozens of matches from the Barclays Premier League and FA Cup, as well as hundreds of hours of live football from Scotland, Germany, Italy and France. Customers have also been able to watch exclusive live coverage of Moto GP races as well as other sporting action including Aviva Premiership rugby, UFC, NBA basketball, women’s tennis and women’s football.

BT also announced that its set top box service BT TV has passed the one million milestone with the majority of those homes taking BT Sport.

Whilst BT Sport will remain free with BT Broadband for another season, non BT Broadband customers can also watch the channels if they have a Sky satellite box. BT Sport is currently £12 a month in standard definition and £15 a month in HD. Virgin Media customers can also access the BT Sport channels for the same price or as part of their package if they take XL broadband from Virgin.

BT Sport was introduced to help BT Consumer return to top and bottom line growth. It has helped BT to grow its broadband base and to improve its share of broadband net adds in what is a highly competitive market. It has also helped the business to grow its TV revenues and to significantly reduce the number of line losses.

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