June 09, 2015

BT announced Sports plans for next season's Champions League

But no word yet on availability or pricing on Virgin Media, but it looks like we're losing BT Sports in HD (I've highlighted that in bold in the following extract from the press release;

BT has revealed that all 351 matches from the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League next season will be free for customers who take BT TV. BT TV customers will be able to receive the full BT Sport Pack for free – comprising BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2, ESPN on BT Sport and the new BT Sport Europe channel, which launches on August 1 as the new home of top European football.
BT Broadband customers who choose to watch on their Sky service, via the BT Sport App or on BT Mobile, will be able to add the BT Sport Pack for a small charge of £5 a month.
BT also announced it will be launching a new Ultra HD channel in August, giving fans an outstanding viewing experience on BT Sport.
Keeping its promise to make televised sport more accessible to more people, BT will give its broadband customers the option of receiving BT Sport 1 for free for a third season. This channel will show all 38 live Barclays Premier League matches as well as the Aviva Premiership and SPFL.
John Petter, chief executive of BT Consumer, said: "When we launched BT Sport we promised to make televised football far more accessible and affordable than it has been to date. We have opened the market to millions of new customers and we want to build on that as BT Sport becomes the undisputed home of European football.
"We are of course giving our best offer to existing customers – broadband customers will get the new BT Sport Pack for the heavily discounted price of £5, whilst customers who take broadband and TV from us will get it absolutely free.
"This is a new chapter for European football on TV. BT Sport will show hundreds of live matches throughout the tournament using the very latest technology. Our presenters and experts will also provide the smartest insight and analysis."
BT’s screening of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League matches will also see new innovation with regard to how viewers can watch games on BT TV. BT TV will be the only place where customers can watch all of the UEFA Champions League games in HD. A Red Button service will allow BT TV viewers to switch between matches and track the action with a new ‘Goal Alert’ function which will let the viewer know when a goal is scored in any of the games and check the latest stats.
BT will make some matches available for everyone to watch, whether a subscriber or not, via a new, free-to-air channel on digital TV. Called BT Sport Showcase, this channel will show a minimum of 12 UEFA Champions League matches and 14 UEFA Europa League matches and these will be available to anyone to watch for free. Each participating British team will be shown at least once. Finally, the company has announced that in August it will also launch the first Ultra HD (4K) channel in Europe, BT Sport Ultra HD, and will also introduce a new BT TV Ultra HD set top box. The Community Shield will be the first broadcast, with other live events shown throughout the season, including selected games from the UEFA Champions League, Barclays Premier League, FA Cup and Aviva Premiership Rugby.

3 comments:

spenner72 said...

I read that as "the only place to see ALL of the games in HD", i.e when there is a lot of group games on at the same time , which was via the red button on Sky. I still think MOST of the games will be in HD.

Jez24 said...

It will be the only place to watch in 4K, but while I understand why you question the press release, my feeling is that BT sports in HD will be on Virgin, as Virgin are just carrying the channels.

dcmonk79 said...

Did anyone notice ESPN changing to BTSport ESPN?