BT and Sky Agree to Cross-Sell Sports and Entertainment Content

BT Group and Sky have agreed to sell each other’s channels as the two U.K. broadcasters seek to maximize the distribution of sports and entertainment programming to recoup content costs and expand the appeal to advertisers, according to Bloomberg.

BT will market and sell Sky’s NOW TV content streaming service, which includes movies and sport, while at the same time wholesaling its BT Sport channels, which include UEFA Champions League and Premier League soccer, to Sky satellite customers, BT said in a statement. The services are expected to be available from early 2019. Talks between the two companies have been on and off for a number of years, BT said.

“This is the next logical step for our TV and content strategy,“ BT Chief Executive Officer Gavin Patterson said in the statement. “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.“

Currently, BT TV customers can access Sky Sports’s “main event packages,“ an inflexible 27.50 pound monthly bolt-on to their subscriptions. The new arrangement will let them access Sky Sports’s eleven channels and NOW TV’s entertainment content which includes premium shows like HBO’s Game of Thrones.