Telenet to air every JPL football match on new sports channel

Belgian cable operator Telenet has announced that it will air every Juliper Pro League football match on its new Sporting Telenet channel.

The operator has now acquired the non-exclusive football rights of the Lot 3 package of matches for the 2012-2014 football seasons. Belgacom, which recently lost the exclusive broadcast rights to Belgium’s top football league, with Telenet taking Lots 1 and 2 for three seasons starting in August, retained the non-exclusive rights to Lot 3 matches, meaning that viewers could be forced to buy two decoders to see all league matches.

“In recent weeks, many of our customers have told us that they regret the fact that our company failed to acquire the entire football rights, and therefore true club fans would have to possess two decoders in order to be able to follow their favourite club’s performance”, said Inge Smidts, senior vice-president residential marketing. “We listened carefully to these concerns. Our new Sporting Telenet pay TV sports channel aims to be closer to the true football fan, and we therefore already decided that we will purchase the non-exclusive football rights of Lot 3.”

Sporting Telenet will replace Prime and will cost between €24.95 and €14.95 depending on the other packages taken by subscribers. As well as JPL matches, it will cover football leagues in Spain, Italy, England, Germany, The Netherlands and France, as well as NFL and NBA matches. The channel will also be available via Yelo, Telenet’s multi-screen service.