BT Won't Bid For Football ights - 30/10/2005

BT has ruled out taking on BSkyB and other broadcasters bidding for live rights to Premiership football. The telecoms giant clarified its position when it provided more details of the new service it is to offer next year which will be delivered via a set-top box connected to a broadband telephone line. The head of BT's retail business, Ian Livingston, said, 'Given that we don't see ourselves as a broadcaster we think it unlikely that we will bid for broadcast packages in that sense.' There had been speculation that BT might use its financial muscle and take on BSkyB after the satellite brodcaster moved into the broadband arena last week when it bought Easynet, a small network rival to BT. The broader significance of these developments for televised football is that telecoms, cable and media companies are all starting to compete with each other in a bid to offer consumers 'triple play' services, a combination of telephony, television and internet. This blurring of boundaries is being driven by new technology based on Internet Protocol stabdards that radically increases the capacity of the traditional fixed line networks to carry data.