[andy_m]

I certainly won't pay approx. £10 for a BT "football focused" channel. I wouldn't have ESPN if it didn't come with xl, and that's despite the fact that it offers 4 channels and MLB, but it's inclusion on xl has saved me from wanting to subscribe to Sky Sports and I suspect Virgin will feel the need to do what they can to offer this channel to their xl customers either for free, or at least at a reduced rate. I'm not sure, given the amount BT have paid for the rights (and I consider this to be more about driving you view than BT Vision, Btw) that they'll be able to achieve this. You then have to consider that Sky Sports, with three times the football, f1, two hd channels and 5 channels full of 24/7 sport content would be much better value at just under £30/ month than a stand alone BT channel at £10.

I can't get BT fibre optic in my area, they give no expected date and given that we're already heavily cabled I doubt we're much of a priority. Opening up rights sales to competition without ensuring that the end user is also able to benefit from competition doesn't achieve the intended consequence-which is a fair deal for the consumer. After all, it seems clear to me that it will now be BT's platforms, and not Virgin's, which will be the home of free Premier League football.