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BT has been forced to compensate viewers after a techical glitch left hundreds of people unable to access its new Sky Sports TV service despite paying over £30 a month to sign up.
Sky Sports went live on the BT Vision service last Sunday, and immediately customers flooded BT’s internet forums with complaints about the picture freezing after only a few minutes of viewing.

BT admitted there was a technical problem with the viewing card which subscribers need to insert into their BT Vision set-top boxes to access the Sky Sports service, and has now been resolved.

ITV uses the same technology as Freeview to broadcast the Sky Sports channels, but encrypts the signal so that those channels can only be watched by paying subscribers who have the correct viewing card.

Viewers also complained about BT’s customer service.

“Shambolic,” posted one customer on BT’s internet forum , “If I was able to watch Sky Sports 1 (which clearly me and hundreds of others cannot) the crowd would be singing ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’,

“I want my money back, and BT you shouldn’t advertise a service you can’t deliver on. You’re idiots.”

BT said that it would compensate people who had been affected by giving them a month’s free Sky Sports, which would normally cost £6.99 or £11.99 a month. However customers must also sign up for a BT phone line and BT broadband, taking the total cost to over £30 a month.

These problems will be a significant embarrassment to BT, which announced the new service with much fanfare last month as a cheap competitor to Sky’s own digital satellite service. BT’s move followed a decision by Ofcom, the media regulator, which forced Sky to wholesale some of its sports channels to competitors, including BT, at discount rates.

BT is looking increasingly accident-prone, after Sky wrong-footed it by increasing its own retail prices when BT had already fixed the amount it would charge for its new service.

While the Sky increase made the BT package more attractive to potential subscribers, it meant that BT would have to pay a higher wholesale price to Sky, cutting deeply into BT’s potential profits.