BT issues Premier League challenge to Sky

BT has told Sky that it plans to offer the full Sky Sports package to BT Vision consumers at a reduced price for the start of the 2010-11 English Premier League season.

This statement was made by incoming BT Vision chief executive Marc Watson, who takes over from Dan Marks after he quit the firm last month amid reported frustration at the dominance of Sky over TV sports rights.

Up to now, BT Vision has only offered access to the EPL games previously owned by collapsed broadcaster Setanta, which are now in the hands of ESPN.

BT Vision is currently in discussions to offer the new ESPN UK channel to its subscribers.

However, Watson told The Independent that there was "no question" that he wants to start offering the full Sky Sports package to BT Vision customers for the 2010-11 season.

"It would be one of the things that would give us a step change in terms of our proposition," he said. "As you can imagine, lots of our customers ask about it, and we'd like to be able to offer it to them."

With a background in football TV rights negotiations, Watson has also highlighted the potential benefit to Sky in bringing Sky Sports to a new group of consumers.

"We are looking forward rather than back in terms of our relationship with Sky," said Watson. "We have a great deal of respect for [Sky] - both in terms of their corporation and their executives, we have very good personal relationships there.

"I think what we need is a grown-up, commercial, sensible relationship with them, going forward, in which we can sell their products, make them some money and make ourselves some money, too."

This also follows Ofcom's latest pay TV consultation in which the regulator highlighted Sky's dominant position over premium sports and movies content.

The watchdog has suggested implementing a wholesale pricing model to push Sky into freeing up access to its premium content for rival TV providers.

Under these proposals, BT Vision would be able to offer Sky Sports to its customers for around £15 per month, which is significantly below the £35.50 currently charged by Sky.

Despite this, Ofcom believes that Sky's wholesale revenues would actually increase under this new model "due to its channels becoming more widely available".

However, Sky chief executive Jeremy Darroch recently said that Ofcom's proposal for reforming wholesale pricing "defies belief".

He particularly claimed that BT and Virgin Media "do not deserve to be handed a reward at Sky's expense for their repeated failure to invest" and that Sky should not have to "compensate for the higher costs of less efficient platforms".

Ofcom has now set a deadline of September 18 for formal responses to the consultation, but Watson has urged the regulator not to waver in its plans.

He said: "We think that's a very good step forward, and what we would say to them is that they need to hold their nerve and act swiftly to get that framework in place."