WALT DISNEY will announce plans today for the launch in Britain of ESPN, the leading American sports television network, in what could develop in the long term into the first major challenger to Sky Sports.

Disney is exporting ESPN to Britain as it seeks to boost revenues after the renegotiation of its lucrative £130 million-a-year distribution deal with BSkyB.

Disney will start to broadcast ESPN Classic, a sports archive channel, next month. It will also distribute a children’s movie channel, Cinemagic, and make its Disney Channel available to eight million homes.

Anne Sweeney, who heads Disney’s television business, said that the company “expects a lot from the ESPN brand” as the media group expands its television business internationally.

ESPN has 90 million subscribers on its core channel in the United States and broadcasts live events, including American football, basketball and baseball matches. Its British launch will feature content bought specifically for the UK market. Over time the company is expected to develop ESPN after its low-key introduction and look at acquiring European sports rights.

“We want to have stronger relationships in the UK than we do today,” Ms Sweeney said. “We hope, for example, that expanding the Disney Channel will excite the creative community in the UK and that we can commission more content from here.”

Disney’s push comes as the company concludes months of talks with Sky, the satellite broadcaster in which News Corporation, parent company of The Times, has a 37.2 per cent stake. Disney has been out of contract with Sky since October while the two sides haggled.

The American company’s original ten-year deal with Sky was generous because it was struck just before the satellite broadcaster’s flotation. Sky is Disney’s biggest partner outside the United States, while Disney is thought to represent Sky’s biggest third-

party expense. Media industry insiders estimated that Disney had been forced to cut its rates for its flagship _Disney channels from about £1.30 a month per subscriber to about 65p for the next seven years, although the company has offset the rate cut by making its channel available in three million more homes.

Nevertheless, Disney’s income from Sky is thought to have been cut on a like-for-like basis. Richard Freudenstein, Sky’s chief operating officer, refused to give exact figures, but said “this deal is consistent with the guidance we’ve been giving on margins”, which has been to promise greater profits by cutting payments to other channel providers.

Ms Sweeney said that Disney would benefit from a “stronger relationship” with consumers because of its increased exposure. Some Disney content will be made available on Freeview and it also hopes to get higher pay-per view revenues. Ms Sweeney wanted to continue selling the company’s general entertainment programming to free-to-air broadcasters, which attract the biggest audiences, rather than run them first on her company’s channels.