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TalkTalk’s UK Broadband TV Platform Adds Amazon Prime Video

Wednesday, Apr 24th, 2019 (11:33 am) - Score 6,158

Budget broadband ISP TalkTalk has today followed Virgin Media by announcing that Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service will also be coming to their YouView (IPTV) powered Pay TV platform. The Prime Video app is being rolled out on set-top-boxes over the course of this month.

Customers who already have a Prime Video subscription will simply be able to stream the service by logging into the app via the TalkTalk box, while those who don’t currently have a Prime Video subscription can take advantage of the 30-day free trial (Amazon run the same offer – normally £5.99/month). Football fans will benefit from being able to watch even more of next season’s Premier League games with access to Prime Video, BT Sport and Sky Sports all through their TalkTalk TV box.

Will Ennett, TalkTalk’s Head of TV Content and Editorial, said: “We’re committed to giving our customers more of the TV and film they love by growing our roster of content partners. Amazon Prime Video has captured TV fans with its exciting original series’ and is a fantastic addition to the TalkTalk TV line up, making it even easier for our customers to enjoy the very best entertainment in one place and through just one remote.”

By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.

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Mobile giant Vodafone UK and Sky (Comcast) have reportedly two among several "groups" that have approached budget conscious fixed broadband ISP TalkTalk about a potential deal (most likely an acquisition), which in theory could create a much larger provider with more influence over the industry. Just to recap. In 2020 TalkTalk became the subject of a £1.1bn takeover by Toscafund - controlled by hedge fund tycoon Martin Hughes (here), which including debt valued the broadband provider at around £1.8bn. The deal took the ISP private and gave them more financial flexibility for their future plans. Since then, they've backed Freedom Fibre (here) and this week made the notable acquisition of Ethernet provider Virtual1 (here). According to the FT (paywall) and Sky News, TalkTalk is now said to have asked investment bank Lazard to review its options after allegedly being approach by several groups, including Vodafone and Sky (Sky Broadband). Lazard is a logical choice as they recently acted as Financial Advisor to TalkTalk on the Virtual1 transaction. Some industry analysts have reportedly suggested that TalkTalk itself could now be worth "at least" £3bn. But this seems rather optimistic for an ISP that doesn't have any significant fixed line broadband infrastructure to call its own (excluding their old unbundled LLU network) and largely just piggybacks off Openreach (BT), CityFibre and Freedom Fibre. But TalkTalk do have a strong business and wholesale side. Funnily enough, Sky Broadband are in a similar position with their own fixed line base, while Vodafone also likes to piggyback off Openreach and CityFibre. At present, Vodafone has a fixed broadband base of 991,000 customers, while Sky Broadband is estimated to be home to around 6.7 million and TalkTalk has approximately 4.2 million. Suffice to say, anybody gobbling up TalkTalk would instantly become a much larger provider, giving them a greater say in how the UK broadband market develops and more opportunities for convergence (Vodafone with mobile, and Sky with mobile and TV). Crucially, TalkTalk's consumer base is mostly made up of those on older copper and hybrid fibre lines (i.e. ADSL and FTTC / VDSL2), which are ripe for a future migration to FTTP. At the time of writing, all of the aforementioned operators have decline to comment on the reports, and TalkTalk has yet to receive any serious formal offers. In other words, we strongly suspect that this is largely just an exercise in spin to help TalkTalk drum up some more productive interest in the idea. But at the same time, it's not unreasonable to suspect that they might succeed, as the interest seems genuine. On the other hand, we see reports like this every year or so and only a very few ever convert into a serious offer. Time will tell. Much may depend upon whether or not TalkTalk’s new owners are more flexible and pragmatic about doing a deal than the previous lot. Arguably, TalkTalk might have gone much further by now had they taken some different decisions a few years ago (e.g. co-investing in FTTP instead of Pay TV).

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Comments

7 Responses

TechBoy says:

April 24, 2019 at 1:07 pm

So it looks like Sky will be the only one without Prime Video
Roger_Gooner says:

April 24, 2019 at 1:38 pm

My feeling is that it’s going to happen as Amazon clearly wants more subscribers but it takes time to develop and deploy the Prime app on various platforms.
Big red balls says:

April 24, 2019 at 3:56 pm

They did this before virgin. My box received it a week ago.
Mark says:

April 24, 2019 at 6:24 pm

The only thing TT should be doing is providing HD channels via their TV service. Why would I pay for TTTV when I can get Now TV cheaper and in 720p instead of standard def! Everyone else offers HD channels, with the likes of Sky and Virgin offering UHD as well yet when I asked TT about HD they said they have no plans to offer it
1. Name says:
  
  April 24, 2019 at 8:03 pm
  
  Why anyone take TV from TalkTalk?
Clare says:

April 25, 2019 at 8:48 am

I am with talk talk and regret the day I took it out. Their customer service is terrible. All based “overseas” with people reading from scripts and repeating everything you know. On renewal I work be looking at providers with uk call centres only
Stephen Hall says:

May 15, 2019 at 11:34 pm

Amazon Prime arrived on my box last Friday but now today has stopped working while all other players including Netflix are fine. Any ideas ?