BT TV Confirm Universal SD and HD Channels to Cease Next Month
Customers of BT’s broadband and Youview (IPTV) based pay TV packages are currently being informed that the popular Universal SD and HD channels will be removed from their TV platform on the 27th January 2020. Meanwhile any recordings that users have made will follow on Sunday 23rd February 2020.
In a brief letter to subscribers BT said that “this decision is out of our control and is driven by Universal’s decision to remove the channel and subscription platform from the market.” The decision ultimately stems from Comcast’s earlier takeover of Sky (Sky Broadband), which among other things included the merger of some Sky and NBCUniversal International operations.
As a result of the above Sky has largely taken operational control of NBCU’s UK channels (e.g. Universal TV, Syfy UK etc.) and thus you can find many related TV shows on Sky’s own channels, such as Sky Witness, although this in turn means that Universal is ceasing on other platforms.
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In fairness the complexity of TV content licensing means that some related TV shows, such as Mr Robot, can still be found on other platforms like Amazon Prime etc.
Extract from BT’s Letter
You don’t have to do anything, the channel will automatically close on 27th January 2020 but you’ll be able to watch any recordings you have until 23rd February 2020.
Of course, we don’t want to see you go, but if this change means you want to end your TV service, you can do so in the next 30 days without having to pay a fee for leaving early. To discuss your options, please call us.
Many Thanks
The BT Team
End.
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 and Linkedin.
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We phoned BT to cancel our TV subscription and they denied this, telling us it was a scam!
Clearly they’ve given you bad information. If you look at the small print on their TV packages now it also echoes this: “Universal SD and HD channels will cease from BT TV on the 27th of January 2020 and will no longer be available in the UK market. The recordings will be available until Sunday the 23rd of February 2020.”
https://www.bt.com/tv/extras/
No surprise here already announced they would close the channel on sky earlier
Yep, it is all part of the re-structure now that Sky is part of Comcast.
They’re all part of the same company …
Yes, on their TV planner at Universal TV there’s no content from 27th January 2020.
Watching Universal HD on SkyGo and the same message came up, saying it was closing on 26 Jan. If it’s actually staying on Sky they’re clearly giving mixed messages. No wonder there’s confusion.
Where are used to work as a BT engineer myself as part of the phone systems and and when I phone up up to talk to BT about why when the phone lines went down they said it’s nothing to do with the keys to deal with Sky but we are Sky customers provided by BT Lines and also is that I’m annoyed that BT decide to change all the channels over so that we can’t watch her own channels again loved in the past and also channel like Universal channels has to be taken off air because BT override every services in this area and we are Sky customers and we don’t believe them BS that people think happens when we pay our TV licences and services two other companies that treat us like s***