NEW PL TV DEAL

Britain's new cable giant is planning an audacious bid to undercut Sky by offering Premiership football subscription packages for as little as £10 a month.

The company to be formed by the merger of NTL and Telewest is planning to offer an estimated £200m a year for Premiership rights if the European Commission rules that no single broadcaster can bid for more than 50% of the games. In 2003 Sky paid £1.02bn for an exclusive three-year deal to televise all live Premiership games.

Simon Duffy, the new company's chief executive-in-waiting, said yesterday that Sky had underpaid for football rights and a fairer auction would generate more cash for clubs and better value for supporters. He held out the prospect of some matches being shown live on free-to-air channels.

Sky's rivals support the Commission's view that the new contract for 2007-10 should limit any single broadcaster to 50% of the available matches.

Duffy said: "If you look at the way the Premier League has been bid for and sold over the last several years ... the amount of money going into the game has gone down and the amount of money people have to pay to watch Premiership games on TV has gone up. That can't be right."

With a combined total of 5m customers, the new cable company believes it has the muscle to take on Sky, which has 7.8m subscribers. NTL plans a separate, dedicated Premiership channel, with subscriptions costing around £10 a month. Sky Sports packages - which include four channels showing a range of sports - cost between £28 and £34 a month.

The cable operator believes the deal for the 2007-10 rights should also include live Premiership matches on free-to-air channels for the first time. He told Radio 5 Live: "We believe we can take money out of Sky's pocket and give it back to the game and into people's pockets.