ITV pressed over Sky carriage for sport channel

The Football League has urged ITV to negotiate and secure a carriage deal for the ITV Sport Channel on Sky Digital.

Keith Harris, Football League chairman, said yesterday: "The Nationwide Football League chairmen welcome the statement yesterday by Granada, and on behalf of Carlton, that they continue to be fully committed to the Football League's £315m broadcasting agreement. However, as a body, the chairmen are increasingly concerned at the intransigence of Sky in the matter of not broadcasting the ITV Sport channel on its platform."

Previous negotiations between Sky and ITV have stalled over the carriage cost for the premium channel. One option for ITV, failing an agreement with Sky, would be to launch on the platform independently of Sky's marketing involvement. Reports hint that the broadcaster is "unkeen" to do that, however, preferring to thrash out a deal with Sky instead.

A Sky spokesman told the Media Guardian: "We are baffled by this statement. Sky Digital is regulated as an 'open platform' and will carry any channel on fair and reasonable, non-discriminatory terms. It is nonsense to suggest that Sky either can or would wish to exclude any regulator-approved channel from Sky Digital."