BT Group has agreed to form a new sports joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery in the UK and Ireland.
He confirmed the deal to the telecom giant as it also pointed out that the business is “on the right track” despite declining revenue for the past one year.
In February, BT said it was in exclusive talks with the US media giant after completing a lengthy review of its BT Sport operations.
It confirmed that it will now form a 50-50 joint venture that will bring BT Sport and Eurosport together.
BT said the two brands would initially remain separate but would eventually be “brought together under a single brand in the future”.
The London-listed firm said it would receive £93 million from Warner Bros. Discovery immediately, and up to £540 million if future terms were met.
The confirmation came after BT told shareholders it met expectations for a 2% increase in earnings for the year from March to £7.6 billion, as cost savings offset lower revenue.
BT said it would expand its cost savings plans to save £2.5 billion by the end of 2025, revising previous targets of £2 billion in savings by 2024.
It added that cost-cutting has helped the company absorb some of the inflationary pressures.
video of the day
Our full year results were declared this morning and we are on track.
We’re investing at an unprecedented pace, we’re expanding our cost savings target, and we’re confident in our outlook for revenue growth.
Read more: https://t.co/qXv5upzRh7
— BT Group (@BTGroup) 12 May 2022
Revenue for the year fell 2% to £20.8 billion, driven by lower sales across its enterprise and global businesses, although the firm benefited from the strong performance of its OpenReach network business.
It said its consumer business, which is focused on the EE Mobile brand, returned to growth in the last quarter.
Chief Executive Philip Jensen said: “BT Group has again delivered a strong operating performance thanks to the efforts of our partners across the business.
“We have finalized a sports joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery to improve our content offering to customers, aligning our business with a new global content powerhouse.
“Separately, we have strengthened our strategic partnership and key customer relationship with Sky, now extending our reciprocal channel supply deal into the next decade and entering into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to extend our co-provisioning agreement. ) has been agreed upon.”
We made a necessary increase in prices, but also improved what people can get for that costPhilip Jensen, BT Chief Executive Officer
Boss also said that the company has not seen customers unsubscribe in response to pressures from living.
“No, we haven’t seen anything to suggest that we’re seeing yet,” he told reporters.
“We have been consistent that we recognize the pressures of all our customers so we are focused on prioritizing value for money.
“We made a necessary increase in prices, but improved what people could get for that cost.”
Shares in BT were up 2.2% in early trade.
