He’s got lots of balls: Gavin Patterson, the telecoms titan who became a Premier League player

When BT spent millions for the rights to show top-flight football, it also threw off a staid image. The man behind it, Gavin Patterson, is suitably smooth and sharp, as James Ashton reports
Reach for the Sky: Gavin Patterson has thrown down the gauntlet with BT’s move into live football broadcasts (Picture: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures)
Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures
James Ashton13 October 2014

How do you unsettle Gavin Patterson, the cool and contained chief executive of BT? Simple. Ask him about those column inches that go on about his good looks.

Patterson has been described by the normally sober business press as alternately “so handsome and well-groomed” and “square of jaw” as well as someone who might “audition for a part in a movie about Lakeland poets”. Not your average FTSE 100 boss, then.

“I am a bit embarrassed by it, to be perfectly honest,” Patterson says. “I don’t take it that seriously; I can think of worse things to be said about you.”

In fact, the makeover of BT, the former state-owned telecoms company, has less to do with his collar-length, tousled hair, sharp suits and pocket handkerchief — although his style marks a departure from the geeky enthusiasm of his predecessor Ian, now Lord, Livingston.

Instead, it boils down to one thing: Premier League football. Stunning the broadcasting world by splashing £738 million to air top-flight matches for three years on its new sports channels has been a catalyst for sprucing up staid BT. The company then spent more, laying out £897 million to add exclusive Champions’ League and Europa League coverage from next season.

Its wheeze of giving games away for free to broadband customers has seen group revenues rise again. And with the next Premier League auction due in spring, Patterson, 47, may even try to unseat BSkyB, which has grown fat on football over more than two decades, as the sport’s main home.

“I do think we have a choice to make in terms of what we do going forward,” he says. “But it is a choice from a position of strength, because we have the Champions’ League exclusively next year and the Europa League.

“From that point, it means we can have roughly what we have got at the moment or we can go for the dominant position, but we can do it in a financially rational way. Look at what could have happened if we hadn’t got the Champions’ League. We could be staring down the barrel.”

Sky’s football rivals have talked tough before but the likes of Setanta and ESPN came and went. BT is showing more grit. Patterson’s bold bet guarantees him a spot in the Evening Standard’s 1000 Most Influential Londoners.

After a decade at BT, Patterson is clearly very driven but he comes over as thoughtful and understated, proclaiming an ambition to carry on souping up BT’s brand and improving its often-criticised customer service.

Selling something better comes from his time at Procter & Gamble, where he was for a time the marketing director for Pantene shampoo. Patterson also has P&G to thank for introducing him to his wife, Karen, a bereavement counsellor, whose sister he worked with.

Despite the pressures of running a business with 88,000 staff and seven million broadband customers, he tries to get home by 8pm during the week when there are no functions to attend. At the weekend he “willingly” ferries about his three daughters and a son, aged 14, 13, 12 and eight.

“They are at a period of their lives when they are pushing boundaries,” he explains. “They play a lot of sport, they’ve got a lot of friends and we like to support them as much as we can.”

The P&G connection also brings added spice to Patterson’s TV ambitions. Sky boss Jeremy Darroch is a fellow P&G alumnus who sends his children to the same Surrey school.

What is clear is that by capturing some FA Cup games and rugby too — although Sky has just kept hold of World Cup cricket rights — BT is striking back after Sky rolled tanks onto its lawn eight years ago by offering free broadband to its TV customers. Patterson insists that it is not simply a head-to-head battle.

“It is not about taking on Murdoch per se, it is much more about bringing sport to a wider group of people and using it to grow our broadband business,” he says, sat in his office with its giant, wall-mounted television, powder-blue sofa and two framed Liverpool shirts.

But he is clearly stung by Sky’s advertising, which points out that the satellite giant still aired 49 of the 50 most-watched Premier League games last year.

“It is a great claim but it doesn’t tell the whole story. The number of people who are available to watch TV at lunchtime on a Saturday is considerably lower than they are at 5.30pm at night. As a share of the audience at that time of day, we’ve done very well.”

One thing that might keep both parties happy next time is if broadcasters are offered more games. It might feel like Premier League football is wall-to-wall but at present fewer than half of the season’s 380 fixtures are shown live. One suggestion is for a new Sunday- night slot, like Spain’s La Liga enjoys. Patterson says: “It is a very interesting point. If there were more games available we would be very interested.”

But after feeding the inflation in players’ fees in the last transfer window, he cautions that the £1-billion-a-year TV bonanza might not carry on going up.

“It doesn’t go on for ever. Competition is good, it drives innovation, it drives choice. It has been working for our business, it’s been working for Sky’s. It does reach an equilibrium at some point.”

Patterson’s TV ambitions haven’t stopped with sport broadcast live by Clare Balding and Jake Humphrey. BT looked “very closely” when Daily Express tycoon Richard Desmond was selling Channel 5 but: “We didn’t think it was right for us at that moment.”

If he is intent on transforming the company, what about a tilt at ITV, which has been linked with a takeover by Virgin Media owner Liberty? Patterson’s view is that “it is clearly an asset that many people are interested in”. If he is one of them, he doesn’t say. There is a line to be drawn, though. BT isn’t about to start commissioning the next Downton Abbey, for example.

There are two other big projects on his plate: BT’s return to the mobile market is in the pipeline 13 years after the group spun off O2. Business customers can already sign up, with consumers following soon. “It is not all about video. What we see are customers increasingly wanting to buy communications services from one provider,” he says.

And then there is a £3 billion commitment, made in the depths of the recession, to replace the old copper phone network with super-fast fibreoptics.

“I think we are beginning to get the credit for it. We are not always the best at blowing our trumpet.”

Born in Cheshire, educated in Somerset, Patterson joined P&G because he wanted “the best business education I could find”. That led to four years spent at cable company Telewest — now subsumed into Virgin Media — without which Patterson would never have been propelled into BT’s retail division. In stepping up to become chief executive a year ago when Livingston left to become trade minister, Patterson has become a lot more visible.

With great power comes all manner of responsibilities. In March he was encouraged to abseil down the side of the BT Tower despite being no fan of heights. Plunging into the Premier League, Patterson exuded no such doubts. Watch to see if it pays off.

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