Sky remains the home of Premier League Football

Sky awarded exclusive live UK rights until 2016

The Premier League today confirmed that Sky has successfully secured 116 live matches per year for the seasons running from 2013-14 until 2015-16. As a result, Sky will continue to be the UK’s leading Premier League broadcaster with more live matches than ever before.

Sky will pay £760 million per annum for the 5 packages of live rights for each of the three years of the new Premier League agreement. These start in August 2013 after the remaining year of the existing agreements.

The deal means that Sky Sports will have the very best live Premier League coverage for another four years. Viewers will continue to enjoy Super Sunday and Monday Night Football, with Sky Sports able to offer more of the best matches than any other channel, feature more of the big head-to-head fixtures, and cover every club at least four times a season.

The Premier League deal complements a series of recent rights acquisitions and renewals – including the Football League, UEFA Champions League, Formula One and England’s domestic and international cricket – to ensure that Sky Sports remains the home of sport, with the best line-up of sport on UK television.

Sky has been awarded live rights across all platforms – including satellite, cable, IPTV, online and mobile. This means that, in addition to TV, Sky customers will continue to benefit from live Premier League coverage through Sky Go on PCs, laptops, smartphones, tablets and games consoles. Coverage will also be made available on Sky’s new internet TV service, NOW TV, which launches later this year.

Jeremy Darroch, Sky's Chief Executive, said: "This is a good result for our customers and for our business. It means that Sky Sports remains the home of Premier League football and that viewers will continue to enjoy our live and exclusive coverage until at least 2016.

"We have never offered greater depth and breadth of coverage on Sky Sports, with unprecedented live action right across the schedule. At the same time we’re pushing ahead with more original British content, extending our leadership as the UK’s favourite triple play provider, and launching our new internet TV service, NOW TV, which will give us even more ways to distribute our content.

“In what was a very competitive tender process, we are pleased to have secured the combination of rights that we wanted, providing certainty for us and our customers. Whilst the cost is higher, we have capacity for this increase through the combination of excellent work on cost efficiency across the business and choices over other future spending. As a result, we remain confident of delivering our financial plans, in line with our expectations, unchanged, in each year of the new deal."

Barney Francis, Managing Director of Sky Sports, adds: "The Premier League has never been more popular with our customers so it’s excellent news that Sky Sports viewers will continue to enjoy the biggest and best games, including Super Sunday and Monday Night Football. “Sky Sports viewers have never had so much choice of high quality action. Alongside the Premier League, we have long term agreements in place to show the best in live sport, including UEFA Champions League football, European, Ryder Cup and US tour golf, Test and one-day cricket and Formula One. At the same time, we’ll continue to innovate in providing the best coverage possible."

- ENDS -

Notes to editors

1) LIVE MATCHES:

Sky has been awarded the following packs:

B: 26 matches (mainly Saturday at 5.30pm)

C: 26 matches - Sunday at 1.30pm

D: 26 matches - Sunday at 4pm

E: 26 matches (mainly Monday at 8.30pm)

F: 12 matches - Saturday at 5.30pm

Total – 116 matches each season.

Sky will show 115 live and exclusive Premier League matches next season (2012-13) in the final year of the existing Premier League rights agreement.

2) RECENT RIGHTS:

Other recent rights agreements or renewals for Sky Sports include:

Formula 1 - all live races plus practice & qualifying sessions until 2018

UEFA Champions League - 129 matches per season until 2015

Football League - 90 Football League, Play-off and Carling Cup matches per season until 2015

Scottish Premier League football - 30 matches per season until 2017

European Tour Golf - 28 Tour events and 4 World Championship events each season until 2018

Ryder Cup – the Ryder Cup tournaments in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018

ECB Cricket - all England Test matches, one-day and Twenty20 internationals, 60 days of county cricket per season, and one-day England Women fixtures until 2017

ICC Cricket - Men’s and women’s ICC Cricket World Cup, World Twenty20 and Champions Trophy events until 2015

Rugby Super League - 30 matches per season until 2016.

3) SHARE BUYBACK

 British Sky Broadcasting Group plc (the “Company”) previously announced that it had entered into an irrevocable and non-discretionary arrangement with its broker, Morgan Stanley, to repurchase on its behalf and within certain pre-set parameters, ordinary shares in the Company for cancellation during any prohibited period that should arise.

The Company considered the period covering the Premier League tender process to be a prohibited period. The Company confirms that with the release of this announcement it is no longer in a prohibited period and has terminated the irrevocable arrangement with Morgan Stanley. The Company is now free to make further repurchases on a discretionary basis as part of the £750m buyback programme which was approved by shareholders at the Company’s Annual General Meeting on 29 November 2011 and which are in accordance with Chapter 12 of the UKLA Listing Rules and the Company’s authorities to repurchase shares.