BT shares jump as cost cutting boosts profits BT's Retail division, which provides broadband and telephone services to households and small businesses, has been reducing its costs by 6pc every three months, "quarter on quarter on quarter," and is set to continue at that pace as it stops renewing many outsourced contracts. "The laws of maths say that, at some point you can't [reduce costs any more] but we've been saying that for a while and actually we've upped the pace," Mr Livingston said. However, he added that there is considerably more work to do at its troubled Global Services arm, which provides communications to multinationals like Procter & Gamble, the National Health Service and NATO. The division famously dragged BT into the red in 2008 after costs spiralled of control, forcing it to take a writedown of £340m. It has improved considerably since then but has faltered in recent quarters and is yet to return to a pre-tax profit. "Global Services can be more focused on cost improvements," Mr Livingston said. Lately, its progress has also been hampered by cost cutting by large corporations in Europe, especially in Italy and Spain, where there are "real problems." However, that was partly offset by double-digit growth in emerging markets, especially across Asia. It is also picking up customers from rival Cable & Wireless Worldwide, which was recently acquired by Vodafone. Closer to home, BT said it would ratchet up its competition with BSkyB in the summer, when it launches its new sports television channel showing 38 Premier League football games each season for the next three years. BT made a surprise move into the market for sports rights earlier this year, when it struck a £738m deal for the games. Since then, it has added Premiership Rugby and a slew of international football games to its roster of rights, including the equivalents of the Premier League in Brazil, Italy, France and the US. Mr Livingston said on Thursday that BT was still shopping for more sports rights, but that that it was not about to make any more major outlays. "We have spent most of what we are going to spend," he said. He also indicated that BT will continue lobbying for BSkyB to be forced to share its sports rights, by wholesaling its television content to other players. The television market suffers from the lack of a level playing field. BSkyB has been our biggest customer for a long time [renting fibre broadband to sell to BSkyB customers]. We would like to be one of theirs," he said. Shares in BT closed up 14.50 at 227p.