BT Hands Ad Sales Contract For New Sports Stations To Channel 4

BT has awarded its ad sales contract for its new sport channels to Channel 4, "closing one of the avenues the telecoms giant could have taken to resolve its increasingly bitter conflict with rival BSkyB," according to Maisie McCabe of MEDIA WEEK. In the final stages of the process, "Channel 4 beat Sky's Sky Media." Channel 5 "was also shortlisted for the business, but is believed to have dropped out of the bidding" earlier this year. Although several sources suggested that Sky "was never likely to win," one source with knowledge of the process said that "it could have been awarded the business as part of a wide-ranging deal between the two warring companies." BT started speaking to potential ad sales partners in autumn '12, and "invited ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky Media, as well as the smaller firms Axiom Media, Dolphin TV and Mean Broadcast" (MEDIA WEEK, 4/19).