Red Bee Media lands BT Sport play-out contract

BT has awarded the contract for the play-out of its new live sports channels to distribution, media management and branding specialist Red Bee Media. The BT Sport services are due to launch in SD and HD during the summer over satellite and fibre broadband into both homes and venues including pubs and clubs across the UK.

Red Bee Media has already worked on the station branding for BT Sport, including its logo, and now will handle all play-out and channel and media management for the service from its broadcast centre in west London.

Grant Best, senior channel executive producer with BT Sport, comments: “It’s vitally important that we have complete confidence in our ability to deliver the amazing live sports coverage we’ll be offering to customers of BT Sport. We chose Red Bee Media because of its impressive expertise in supporting this type of live event broadcasting.”

BT Sport will broadcast 24 hours a day and has signed up a roster of top-flight sports as part of its offering. This includes 38 live football matches a season from the Barclays Premier League, 69 live rugby union games in the Aviva Premiership, as well as 800 hours of live tennis in association with the Women’s Tennis Association. All broadcasts and presentation will come through BT Sport’s new broadcast centre, currently being installed in the iCITY development at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London.