Quote:
Originally Posted by trevrpb
I'm not sure how you can come to that conclusion. This will all be thrashed out in the final agreement with BT. BT will obviously want to reach as wide an audience as possible. Any agreement made with Virgin will involve a cost, and it maybe that Virgin will no longer be able to have BT owned ESPN & ESPN HD as a 'freebie' on the XL package.
As BT need to get as much an audience as it can to cover their costs of their Premier League rights and the ESPN deal(s), it's 99.9% certain that BT Sports 1,2 and ESPN will be on Virgin and depending how much Virgin will have to pay to carry those channels, including HD variants if offered, will also determine how much Virgin will HAVE to charge its customers.
I love my football and I take the Sky Sports HD package, and I WILL also be taking any BT Sports package that becomes available. It would have to be an astronomical additional cost for me not to.
TrevP
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Why do you think Bt's primary concern is making their money back straight away? I wouldn't be surprised if they're prepared for it to take longer than the current rights cycle. Offering the channel to Virgin just to add subscriber numbers would fly in the face of their clear efforts to increase subscribers on their own platform. Frankly I can't see why anybody thinks these channels will be available on Virgin - it just wouldn't make any sense for Bt. The fact that Virgin are advertising 18 month deals with free ESPN makes me think that these channels will remain in xl.