Re: BT Sport disappeared from TV Go
 

It’s “free” to customers highly unlikely to pay for it, so a net gain overall for BT compared to selling it on the Virgin platform. Sky would have to cover all the revenue from DTH subscribers on that platform - it’ll be price rises if it does happen.

BT aren't retailing Sky Basic channels within their own packages, only via Now TV, so I doubt there's going to be much given by either side.

Re: BT Sport disappeared from TV Go
 

Sky subscribers who watch Sky Sports are of course interested in topping up their sports diet with BT Sport. The problem at the moment for Sky viewers is that it is devilishly expensive under existing arrangements.

Re: BT Sport disappeared from TV Go
 

That's because recovering £650m (and that's just the Premiership and Champions League) a year in sports rights is an expensive operation. Unless Sky are willing to take the hit on their profits (no laughing at the back) it means price rises to cover it.

Subscribers on the Sky platform are the ones likely to either a) take BT broadband or b) pay the standalone price. BT need to recoup their outlay from them.

Re: BT Sport disappeared from TV Go
 

So how come Virgin Media XL customers were given BT Sport at no extra cost? Sky would only be letting Sky Sports customers get it free under the assumed arrangement.

Re: BT Sport disappeared from TV Go
 

Virgin Media customers are much less likely to take Sky premium channels, let alone any standalone channels over and above that. I think we can universally accept at standalone price Sky Sports represents better value than BT Sports.

So if Virgin offer BT Sports to say, 1.8 million TV XL customers, maybe only a couple of hundred thousand of them would have actually paid the full price anyway.

200 000 * £30 * 12 = £72m.

Virgin on the other hand could offer £5 per XL subscriber and that's £108m, plus advertising revenue but I'll accept that's negligible.

Sky customers are far more likely to take Sky Premiums, and in turn more likely to pay for additional standalone channels. Or, not being Virgin customers are more likely to take BT broadband plus Sky TV. It's Sky customers (and BT customers) where BT are far more likely to recoup their investment.

So unless Sky wants to stump up through price rises BT aren't going to cover their costs. Under your proposal they are going to give it away to approx six million households who are most likely to pay for it anyway.

There is no magic money tree as they say.