On BT Sport, chief executive Philip Jansen said: “We had two very good external options, but in the final analysis it made sense for all our stakeholders and our customers to go down the route of a joint venture with Discovery.”
Such a deal suggests BT could still shoulder significant costs of paying for sports rights. Sky, Amazon and BT agreed to roll over their £5bn Premier League live sport deal in May.
Mr Jansen added: “It’s safe to say we wouldn’t have [entered exclusive talks with Discovery] if it wasn’t improving the financial profile for both parties.”
BT also revealed a new channel supply deal with Sky that stretched beyond 2030, in a further sign of easing competitive tension around sports rights.
BT and Sky had fought a fierce and expensive battle for live sports rights before striking a channel sharing deal in 2017 that allowed both parties’ customers to gain access to each company’s live sport through pay TV packages.
Meanwhile, BT’s revenues fell 2pc to £5.4bn during the three months to December, as its business-to-business and global IT services arms fell by 6pc and 4pc respectively.
Mr Jansen said: “Everybody hoped the supply chain issues would resolve themselves quicker than they had. We managed it pretty well … but in specific places, particularly in the large corporate areas, it’s been difficult to get hold of [equipment] from our suppliers because they are short from a chip shortage point of view and supply chain challenges.”
BT is under pressure to deliver growth after Patrick Drahi, its biggest shareholder, increased his stake in December from 12pc to 18pc in a move that stoked speculation that he was preparing a takeover bid.
Profits for the period rose by 4pc to £1.9bn as BT benefited from higher sales linked to the roll out of faster full-fibre broadband.
The company is spending £15bn on upgrading 25m homes and business to full-fibre by 2026 after Ofcom, the media regulator, provided a broadband pricing structure that handed it certainty to invest.
BT said the take-up of full-fibre that is replacing its older copper network had now accelerated to 1.5m homes and businesses.
Its average full-fibre build rate reached 50,000 a week in the third quarter, meaning 6.5m premises, including 2m in rural areas, could now access the service.
BT said its EE mobile network had 6.4m customers ready to access 5G, which now covered 40pc of the UK population.
Meanwhile, Mr Jansen supported calls from rival Vodafone for greater consolidation to help improve low margins across the industry.
“If you look across Europe, the telecoms market has been challenged,” Mr Jansen added.
“So, my philosophy is exactly the same: there is no question that consolidation could help the industry to make sure there are more economic rational decisions made as huge capital investments are executed.”
