Rupert Murdoch is exploring a tie-up with BT’s television arm, The Telegraph can reveal, as the nonagenarian attempts to reshape and secure his media legacy amid the decline of print newspapers.

BT has held talks about a potential partnership with News UK, the publisher of the Sun and the Times, City sources said.

The telecoms operator is seeking to focus on upgrading its broadband network and reduce the risks posed by regular auctions of Premier League and Champions League football rights.

Bankers from Lazard have been appointed to help secure a deal, which BT hopes will deliver a partner to share the burden of future investments.

Discussions with News UK are at an early stage and may not lead to an agreement, sources said. Mr Murdoch, who turned 90 in March, faces opposition from the likes of Dazn, an international sports streaming business bankrolled by the billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik.

Sources close to the talks suggested Dazn, which has already sealed a comparable sports broadcasting partnership with Telecom Italia, has so far shown the greatest appetite to secure a deal quickly.

BT, which is seeking to recast its involvement in sport broadcasting under consumer chief executive Marc Allera, is meanwhile said to be open to more detailed talks with Dazn’s rivals. They include ITV, which has not withdrawn from the process, and the owner of the Eurosport channel Discovery.

Mr Murdoch has entered the fray as News UK seeks new sources of growth and influence beyond his former stronghold of newspaper publishing.

This month it was revealed that he had been forced to write down the accounting value of the Sun, the financial success of which once fuelled his push into the US, to zero.

The move helped push the tabloid’s loss for last year beyond £200m as it also grappled with a pandemic sales slump, the continuing cost of the phone hacking scandal and the dominance of Google and Facebook in the online advertising market. The Sun has proved unable to build a digital subscription business.

Although Mr Murdoch’s talks with BT, a former enemy when he was controlling shareholder in Sky, will surprise some in the media industry, a partnership could build on News UK’s existing broadcasting business. It is already a significant sports broadcaster as the owner of the radio station TalkSport, part of Wireless Group, which it acquired four years ago for £220m.

Under chief executive Rebekah Brooks, it is now also developing a television news unit, although she has said it will stop short of creating a rolling broadcast channel to rival BBC News, Sky News or GB News due to the costs involved. She said News UK would aim to “launch the right products for the digital age”.

A deal with BT Sport could give News UK access to valuable digital distribution for the more limited news programming it does plan to create, one source close to the talks said. As well as its sport channels, BT provides internet-connected set-top boxes in millions of homes.

Analysts have struggled to value BT Sport, partly because the structure of a deal and the identity of the partner could have a significant bearing on its financial potential. Nevertheless, the broadcast infrastructure, customer base and other assets are reckoned to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

News UK’s parent company News Corp had nearly $2bn (£1.4bn) in cash on its balance sheet at the last count in May and could comfortably afford to bid for a stake. However, sources said it was not considering taking equity in BT Sport and is instead exploring potential commercial ties.

BT and News UK declined to comment.