BT TV Bring Sky Sports 1 and 2 to its Broadband Based YouView Boxes

Customers of BT’s broadband powered YouView TV (IPTV) service can, following the operators successful application for interim relief at the Competition Appeal Tribunal, now get access to the Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 channels alongside their existing BTSport, ESPN and Eurosport content. The move also means no more BTVision+ boxes.

The development follows last month’s ruling by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (here) which, after four long years of disagreement, finally ruled to uphold Ofcom’s original 2010 decision against Sky (Sky Broadband). This required the media giant to ensure that their sports channels were being made available to the BT TV YouView platform and at prices set by the regulator.

Previously BT customers who wanted Sky Sports had to take their older Vision+ set-top-box, although BT said that they will now be able to stop selling these and focus on their YouView kit instead. BT intends to offer both Sky Sports 1 + 2 for £22 a month or £16.50 for just one of the channels, allowing customers the flexibility to opt in and out of the Sky Sports channels with 30 days’ notice.

Delia Bushell, MD of BTTV and BTSport, said:

“This is a pivotal moment for our ambitions in TV. We are delighted to now be able to offer a stronger range of premium sports programming on our YouView boxes, adding to the recent launch of Netflix.

The ability to bundle together great content on our most advanced set top box will underpin our aim to sell BT TV to more of our broadband customers and to accelerate the number of our customers who take a triple play bundle from us.

At the moment we’ve got our best-ever offer available – BT Infinity, BT TV with YouView, BT Sport and Netflix for £5.99 for the first six months. Customers who want to add Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 can now add that option, whereas previously they would have had to take the Vision+ box and a different deal.”

Meanwhile existing BT TV customers on the older Vision+ box have been told that they can swap it for the YouView+ kit at the end of their current contract, although this attracts a one-off fee of £35 and the subscribers must also take the superfast broadband BTInfinity (FTTC) product.

However it should be noted that the UK’s Pay TV market has changed a lot since 2010 and Ofcom are thus about to launch another consultation to investigate the market, which may well result in further changes.