Rupert Murdoch’s News UK has confirmed the company held talks with BT Sport over a possible joint venture.
However, the company that runs The Times and The Sun, as well as Virgin Radio and TalkSport said it would not be proceeding further with the conversations.
TalkSport had previously been a natural bedfellow with Sky Sports prior to News Corp’s sale of Sky to Comcast in 2018. It still holds a number of sponsorship contracts with the premium sports channel.
News Corp is the parent company of News UK.
In April, BT confirmed it was in “early discussions” over the possible sale of a stake in its sports channel. Potential broadcasters including ITV, Amazon, Disney (the owner of ESPN) and sports streaming service DAZN were said to have expressed an interest.
A spokesperson said: “News UK held an early-stage discussion with BT Sport to explore limited, commercial partnership opportunities. It is not pursuing those discussions any further.”