ITV is in talks with BT to broadcast live Premier League games from next season, according to a report in The Telegraph.
The telecoms giant secured the rights to show 38 games per season from 2013-14 in a three-year deal worth £738m, while Sky kept the broadcast rights to 116 games a season at a cost of more than £2.2 billion.
BT said at the time that it intends to launch a dedicated football channel to air its portion of the live games, which will predominantly play out on Saturday afternoons.
Now BT is in discussions with the terrestrial broadcaster to air some of the games free-to-air on ITV1, a move that would both recoup some of its cost and drive audiences to its own channel. It is currently unknown whether the BT channel will be a basic pay or subscription offering, or how widely it will be distributed.
If a deal between the two parties is agreed, it would represent the first time that a terrestrial broadcaster has aired live Premier League games in the UK.
Neil Wilkes
