Premium TV 'back on track' after restructure
- Added:
- Nov 29, 2002
A spokesperson for the company said it had now signed up 20,000 paying subscribers to its network of official football club sites, thus reaching its end-year target ahead of schedule.
Its FLPTV venture with the Football League has also struck a deal with Rangers to take on its £34.99 premium content offering, which includes video highlights delivered over the web to fans, and is preparing to announce a deal to bundle its services with access packages from parent NTL and an ADSL-based ISP "reasonably soon".
As revealed by netimperative in July, the company, which has partnerships in place with 78 Scottish and English clubs to run their websites, was forced to re-negotiate rights payments to the Football League when debt-laden NTL was faced with a £5m installment. The deal was reworked with the League agreeing to receive payments on a performance-related basis.
The spokesperson said around 70% of its users had now taken up its more advanced £34.99 per month service, while the remainder had subscribed to a package not including video and costing £10 less.
He was also dismissive of BTopenworld's new subscription package offering broadband users highlights of Italian football: "The fact is that online rights for football content that people are going to repeat visit are not Serie A."
After licensing the sportal brand name from ukbetting, openworld is launching the 'broadband channel' with highlights, previews, interviews, magazine programming and gambling content, at a price of £4.99 per month.
NTL said earlier this month that Premium TV recorded £2m revenues in Q3, and an EBITDA loss of £6m. The venture had 16,000 subscribers in November.
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