BT Extend UKTV Partnership for TV Channels and Adds HD Shows

Broadband ISP giant BT has today signed a new “long-term deal” with UKTV, which extends the run for their existing line-up of ten TV channels (Dave, Gold, W, Alibi, Good Food and Eden) on the operator’s YouView based IPTV network and adds a wider selection of Video-on-Demand (VoD) content.

The announcement follows hot on the heels of the recent furore between Virgin Media and UKTV (here), which for a short period resulted in the UKTV channels vanishing from the cable operators network. Mercifully that disagreement has now been settled.

Meanwhile BT seems to have avoided the same sort of fallout and their new agreement also means that customers will soon be able to receive a bigger selection of shows on VoD, which includes the ability to watch them in High Definition (HD) via their BT TV set-top-boxes for the first time.

Tony Singh, BT’s Content and Business Development Director, said:

“Our continued UKTV partnership allows us to keep giving our customers a brilliant range of entertainment, comedy, drama, and lifestyle channels. Our customers love those channels and can, uniquely to BT TV, combine them with services like Netflix, Amazon and NOW TV to give them the flexibility to view a wide range of fantastic content.”

Simon Michaelides, UKTV’s Chief Commercial Officer, said:

“We’re very pleased to be building on our already strong relationship with BT. UKTV channels play a significant role for BT TV customers, so it’s great to be able to extend our VoD services and give them more of the shows that they love, as well as an exciting and expanding portfolio of original new shows and exclusive acquisitions.”

We should point out that UKTV also delivers some or all of its channels and content to other platforms including Freeview, Sky TV (Sky Broadband), TalkTalk, YouView, Freesat, Amazon Fire and UKTV Play.