Telecoms giant BT is to consider making and distributing its own TV content as it looks at entering the broadcasting sector.

BT is drawing up a battle plan to attack the television market and meet the threat represented by cable operators NTL and Telewest.

Chairman Sir Christopher Bland said the possibility of building an integrated model like BSkyB was one "extreme" of a list of options under review.

Both NTL and Telewest offer telephony and high-speed internet access as well as television to UK households and BT believes it has to respond in kind.

Sir Christopher, who joined BT from the BBC last year, said at the weekend that nothing would be excluded from discussions about how to enter the sector.

"At one extreme we can be a distributor of other people's programmes, just as the existing cable companies do," he said.

"On the other extreme, we can build a fully-integrated model like BSkyB, which makes and distributes its own programmes over its own and others' networks and also distributes others' content over its own system."

Sir Christopher said BT might take a stake in existing television businesses and added "there are lots of possible structures".

BT's board is likely to study the available options after Ben Verwaayen starts work as chief executive on January 14.

Sir Christopher said the group would be "pretty clear" on its plans by April, the beginning of BT's financial year.

BT was banned from broadcasting following its privatisation in 1984, but this order expired 12 months ago.

In May last year a spokesman for the group said it was keen to "look at what opportunities there are" in the broadcasting sector.

Speculation at the time centred on BT using its existing network to pump other companies' programmes into the home.