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This is the Discovery press release
https://corporate.discovery.com/discover...d-ireland/
Jeff post_id=66719 time= user_id=842 Wrote:Assuming the proposed JV is approved, it'll be really interesting to see how it'll operate. One of the things I'm really curious about is whether Eurosport & BT Sport's rights/operations will be combined into one or if the two brands will remain separate (with BT Sport remaining as a 'premium' offering) and we'll merely see some shuffling of rights between the two.
It’s interesting because Eurosport traditionally has been a “basic cable” operation and has bought rights to match that price point, whereas BT is definitely at the premium end of the market. The two could operate separately mind you, with their traditional price points and co-operate on rights with Eurosport slowly moving towards a “shop window” for the premium level channels. Or they could be totally integrated, with the Eurosport channels moving to premium status, and a single brand being adopted across both. Interesting to see what happens with the ROI “exclusive wholesale” approach BT have adopted since their inception, their present deal with Sky is up for renewal this summer.
I just can't see them being integrated mainly due to Eurosport being operated on a Europe wide basis. There may be small changes in where domestic only rights end up, and if there is anything where both BT and Eurosport have rights (can't think of anything at the moment but Formula E is an example of where that might have happened in the past) they'll probably switch to one or the other. From a practical point of view Eurosport may use the BT Extra channels for future additional Olympic coverage, but more a case of using the space than putting them on BT branded channels.
I suspect Discovery's investment in BT Sport will be as noticeable on screen as their involvement in GB News is other than perhaps BT Sport becoming available as an add-on through Discovery+ and vice versa.
Of course at one point when Virgin Media (NTL?) were involved with Eurosport we had British Eurosport with quite a few differences from the standard version, but we shall see. I suspect the movement may be the other way - i.e. rather than the Olympics pop up channels, the BT Sport channels can be used for overflow first.
It’s my understanding that BT were talking about abandoning this ‘restructure’ as little as three weeks ago, no details I’m afraid. If so there must have been a somewhat significant nudge very recently.
I’ve also heard that a FTA offering might be on the cards offering the Quest overflow and highlights from across the combined offering.
I’m surprised to see a 50:50 split is envisaged, clearly increasing the current ES portfolio position and conversely reducing the BT one.
Branding will be critical. I can’t see either BT or Eurosport featuring, so something new will be used.
Discovery’s feeds from Paris to Stratford will be significant to engineer and distribute.
Apparently untangling the BT infrastructure for DAZN was seen in the light of the Red Bee incident to be fraught with difficulties too.
I can see an almighty rush to conclude this combination prior to August too. A switch mid season would be messy, so a July/August aim must be achieved.
(Sources: various and private)
Was the DAZN thing all just a bluff then? In the same way the Premier League use the likes of start ups like DAZN to drum up interest and to worry competitors to drive up the price?
If DAZN were serious about acquiring BT Sport, a serious bid for Premier League rights must be a likely in the future, although that seems to be a while away now.
No not a bluff, by all accounts DAZN were interested and came out this morning and basically said they were interested but the price had become unaffordable. (Which is an interesting one though, because presumably instead of getting a pile of cash from an outright sale to DAZN, BT will get instead 50% ownership of a company that owns 100% of Eurosport in the U.K. and Ireland and 100% of BT Sport, and possibly a much smaller amount of cash). I can understand the cynicism though - it has become fashionable for sports rights owners to suggest that Amazon (and it’s usually Amazon) is interested in order to push up the asking price. Backfired on Premiership Rugby when they tried it though!
BcastCornwall post_id=66794 time= user_id=950 Wrote:Branding will be critical. I can’t see either BT or Eurosport featuring, so something new will be used.
GB Sport?
there's also an interesting parallel to what's going on across the atlantic, where AT&T is also trying to offload its media businesses to... Discovery. They're going down the JV route too if I remember correctly, preferring to concentrate on the core telecoms businesses
Also like BT, they spent years trying to avoid a fibre rollout and thought media was the way to go, before reversing both decisions
Except for Comcast/NBC Universal, have any of these telco-media attempts worked?
What do you guys think will happen to the current status of BT Sport on the Sky Sports Extra subscription pack for Sky customers in the Republic of Ireland if the proposed JV from Discovery goes ahead in the UK and Ireland?
Will BT sport pull out of that subscription & become separate within the Sky EPG in the ROI with it then being offered on Discovery+ by way of a separate online subscription?
Also if this deal goes ahead with official regulatory compliance in the UK and Ireland; could be the EPG numbers of BT Sport's TV channels be changed on pay TV operators within both countries?
The same announcement said that BT had agreed in principle to extend the various deals it has with Sky, so assuming that get finalized I wouldn't expect any changes.
Historically, BT Sport’s ROI exclusive wholesale deals (previously with Setanta, then eir, and now with Sky) have been three years deals, tied to the Premier League rights cycle, and as such this one would be up on 1st August. As that’s also the likely target date for the JV to come into operation, any renewal of the deal will be by BT Sport, and as such the new broadcaster will probably find themselves tied into it for a new three year cycle.
I’ve always wondered why BT never marketed directly in Ireland or sought to control its own wholesale rights, at first it appeared because Ireland was an afterthought that they found themselves with a chunk of rights for after the ESPN U.K. takeover, but that’s long since no longer an issue. The first Setanta deal was apparently very advantageous to Setanta, who were on the brink in Ireland at the time with very few rights. They ended up lasting another three years as Setanta and five as eir Sport, and live on in their reincarnation as Premier Sports, who now themselves have a similar arrangement with Sky (and are in fact sold as a single package with BT Sport on most Irish providers, save VM where neither is available).
I'm not sure what to make of this. Would this mean that Eurosport would be run by a 50:50 partnership between BT Sport and Discovery? If so, I would think that more mainstream sports would be added to Eurosport like more Football etc. Would it also mean that we might have a FTA channel like FreeSports?
That statement from Discovery is a bit vague as it doesn't detail what this new partnership is looking to do in the future. Also with more sport coming back on FTA, e.g. Premiership Rugby, Super League etc, I would think it would make sense to set up more FTA sports channels. Alright they would make less money than subscription channels but then again, they could bring in new fans for each sport.
Hearing target is to get this sewn up by late April, complete the operations and launch hopefully in July with the Tour de France as the headliner before the PL in August.
BcastCornwall post_id=68761 time= user_id=950 Wrote:Hearing target is to get this sewn up by late April, complete the operations and launch hopefully in July with the Tour de France as the headliner before the PL in August.
Gonna sound like a noob for saying this but does this mean that BT Sport can advertise the Tour De France and Eurosport can advertise BT Sport stuff or am I getting it a bit wrong and a new channel is launching and advertising on that?
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