ISP PlusNet Lumps Full UK BT Sport TV EU Footy Price Hike onto Users

Customers of PlusNet who also take the ISPs BTSport TV offer (only available via the Sky Digital TV platform), which gives them access to BTSport channels 1, 2 and ESPN from just £5.99 per month (HD for an extra £1.50 a month), may be unhappy to learn that the price is set to almost double.

Readers might recall that the BTSport service recently split European football into a separate channel (BTSport Europe) and existing BT Broadband customers are thus being offered this extra content at the additional price of +£5 per month (here). But BT customers who didn’t want it could elect to retain BTSport Lite for free, which included most of the other content.

As such it had been assumed that PlusNet, being a BT sibling, might continue to benefit from a big discount on the normal wholesale charge (e.g. Sky customers currently have to pay £13.50 per month for BTSport) and would thus offer the new BTSport Lite to their customers for around the same price as today. But a recent update on PlusNet’s website points to a different approach.

PlusNet Update on BTSport TV Price

From 4th August the price of BT Sport from Plusnet on the Sky Digital Satellite Platform is changing to £9.99 a month for SD and £12.49 for HD, and will include BT Sport Europe, BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and BT Sport ESPN.

In short, PlusNet’s customers are not being given the ‘BTSport Lite’ option and thus have to take the BTSport Europe content, whether they like it or not, for £9.99 per month instead of the original £5.99. The additional monthly price for HD content also represents an increase of about £1 on the old charge.

It’s still a better price than most of BT’s competitors charge for the same content, although not everybody has a big interest in EU footy and so others may be less than happy. Credits to members of the ThinkBroadband Forum for spotting this one.