BT and Sky agree deal to sell each other’s channels

UK pay-television operators BT and Sky have agreed a multi-year deal to make rival channels available on each other’s platforms.

BT will now be able to market and sell Sky’s NOW TV service – which offers Sky’s most popular content, including Sky Sports – to BT TV customers.

In addition, BT has agreed to wholesale its BT Sport channels to Sky, allowing Sky to sell these channels directly to Sky satellite customers. The BT Sport channels include exclusively live UEFA Champions League and Premier League football. This will mean that satellite customers will be able to buy BT Sport from Sky as well as from BT.

Gavin Patterson, chief executive of BT, said: “This is an important day for BT and for our customers, who will be able to enjoy a whole range of Sky’s sport and entertainment programming on their BT TV boxes.

“This is the next logical step for our TV and content strategy. Having built up an outstanding portfolio of exclusive sports rights and a loyal base of customers, we feel that now is the right time to broaden the ways in which we distribute BT Sport.

“This agreement fits with our strategic goal of being the best provider in the UK of converged network services, and adding NOW TV boosts our growing roster of outstanding content from the likes of Netflix, great pay channels like AMC and all the major catch-up services.”

It is expected that these new services will be available to customers from early 2019.

Broadcasting is dead – and more alive and dynamic than ever before in the digital world. Television and video content is everywhere, with multiple platforms and devices available at billions of fingertips around the globe.

Sign up to our Broadcast Masterclass here.