[Catesby]

Doug P,

Why would they have needed to climb down? They will have known that they needed more subs revenue and ad money right from the start. They will also have known that Virgin do not allow direct subs the way Sky do, allowing BT to take their details and try to sell them BB, so the benefit of a stand alone sub would not be there and would not gain anywhere near as much revenue for them.

They already managed to get plenty of people re-contracting or switching to BT BB so that part of the strategy worked to the extent it was ever going to. Fact remains the amount of money they paid for sports was not sustainable without wholesaling the product and they would have known this from the get go.