Biétry: 400,000 would be ‘failure’ for beIN Sport

Winning only 400,000 subscribers after one year of operation would be an “enormous failure” for Al Jazeera’s French sports channel venture, according to chief executive Charles Biétry.

Biétry told journalists that he couldn’t yet reveal subscriber numbers for the beIN Sport 1 channel, which launched at the beginning of June. Its sister channel beIN Sport 2 is set to launch on July 27.

Biétry said actual figures would only be available in a few weeks. However, he said the service was attracting new subscribers daily. He refused to confirm that 400,000 subscribers was the target the group had set and declined to say what the group would need to break even, but said that this number would not be sufficient to meet beIN Sport’s ambitions.