Virgin Media (NASDAQ: VMED) and ESPN today announced that the new ESPN channel will be available in both standard and High Definition (HD) to Virgin Media’s 3.5 million digital TV customers from 3rd August. The ESPN channel will offer live Barclays Premier League and Clydesdale Bank Premier League football as well a wide range of international football and top quality sports.
Customers who subscribe to Virgin Media’s XL TV pack will be able to watch ESPN and ESPN HD at no additional cost. As part of the deal, these subscribers will also receive ESPN Classic, featuring the greatest moments of UK and European sport.
Dedicated sports fans who are on Virgin Media’s M or L pack will be able to subscribe to ESPN and ESPN HD for a great value price of £8 a month if they already subscribe to any combination of the Sky Sports channels, or £10 a month if not.
As a special introduction to the new ESPN and ESPN HD channels, Virgin Media will make these ESPN channels available to all of its digital TV customers, for no additional cost, during August.
Mark Schweitzer, chief commercial officer of Virgin Media, said: “This agreement solidifies Virgin Media’s place as the home of TV entertainment and is unquestionably the best value TV deal for sports fanatics. We’ve got all the sports content you’d expect and adding the new ESPN channels to our line-up will mean our customers can watch all the football action they want.”
Mr Schweitzer added: “We’re always looking for ways to go the extra mile for our customers and we think this market beating offer does this in spades as well as providing a sweetener for the start of the football season. We are extremely proud to have partnered with ESPN, which is the world’s leading multimedia sports entertainment company.”
Lynne Frank, managing director for ESPN in Europe, Middle East and Africa said: “We are delighted to add Virgin Media as a new distribution partner and to offer millions more sports fans ESPN’s compelling mix of Barclays Premier League and Clydesdale Bank Premier League football, as well as the best of international football and top quality sports. The plan to make the channels available to Virgin Media’s XL customers will help ESPN better serve sports fans in the UK. It’s an exciting season ahead and we look forward to bringing our new channels, ESPN and ESPN HD as well as ESPN Classic, to as many sports fans as possible.”
ESPN’s new channel ‘ESPN’ will launch on 3rd August in both standard definition and HD. It will showcase 46 live Premier League football games during the 2009/10 season and 23 matches for each of the following three seasons. ESPN will also show 30 live and exclusive Clydesdale Bank Premier League games each season across the UK and Ireland, starting with the 2009/10 campaign this August. The channel will also broadcast other top international sporting events, which will be announced shortly.
The first live Barclays Premier League game on ESPN will be Everton versus Arsenal with a 5:30pm kick off on Saturday 15th August.
