Broadband ISP BT set to relaunch UK pay TV service on 15th October
In a slightly confusing announcement, telecoms giant BT (EE) has today announced that their pay TV product, BTTV, will be “available from 15 October [2026]” as part of a new-ish bundle that “[brings] together TV, streaming services and premium content in one place, powered by BT’s award-winning broadband“. Except BT has had a bundled TV service for years.
The press release does a poor job of explaining what’s actually new about all this. But in recent years BT has tended to direct NEW consumer customers more toward their EE TV service (that is just BT TV, only re-branded to EE). However, in recent months the operator has been gradually working to resuscitate BT as a consumer brand (this started with BT Mobile earlier in 2026) and we suspect today’s announcement simply does the same for TV.
“The launch marks an important milestone for the BT brand, completing its connected offering across broadband, TV and mobile. Customers can now bring all three services together with a provider they know and trust, making it easier to stay connected, entertained and in control,” said BT, while claiming to be “one of the only providers” to bring live sport, live TV and streaming together in one place (quite a few TV providers and platforms can do this).
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The new resuscitated BT TV brand will offer two boxes, including their BT TV Box Pro hardware (much as they did before), which is said to combine the convenience of streaming with the ability to pause, rewind live TV and record over 600 hours of TV. They will also offer the compact BT TV Box Edge, which strips out the recording (PVR) features.
Luciano Oliveira, Managing Director Products at BT Consumer, said:
“Finding something great to watch shouldn’t mean navigating a maze of apps, subscriptions and devices. We’ve designed BT TV to bring customers’ entertainment and sport together, making it easier to find what they love, and giving them the freedom to watch live, record their favourites and catch-up when it suits them. Combined with BT broadband, it gives customers a simpler, more complete connected experience from the provider they know and trust.”
The announcement contains little in the way of useful product information, although as EE and BT TV are basically the same thing then you can expect that EE’s recent TV package refresh will apply.
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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This is the most confusing brand identity situation, it’s a change too often and it’s not fair on consumers who were made to change when didn’t need to.
I don’t get the point in this. I was with BT mobile and TV and they made me transfer over to EE with loads of issues doing it and now they’ve just shut the brand back up
Anyone previously who was on BT Broadband had EE TV, which for BT customers only is becoming BT TV. Identical to EE TV but a different name for a different brand.
Previously:
BT Customers = EE TV
EE Customers = EE TV
Going forward:
BT customers = BT TV
EE customers = EE TV
And Plusnet?
@AT, Plusnet got rid of the TV service ages ago,
Bundling other services is just a ploy to keep you locked in the ecosystem. I moved from BT to Plusnet a year and had to unpick the various services that were previously in the package. I certainly won’t be taking any more bundled services.
@Big Dave, you are not wrong, the last thing I bundled was plusnet mobile and their broadband. But I found I could get a better deal with mobile else were.
Plusnet did phone me once about their TV service, but when I said no, I don’t have a licence, they never bothered again.
BT or EE? That is the question.
Seems to me that there is far too many executives in the company trying to justify there jobs with all this constant shuffling around.
I used to work for BT so can say this. Their strategy internally is as confusing as it seems externally. For a brief period, going all in on EE kind of made sense. It’s quickly undermined the next quarter by the new strategy. The technology teams have a high churn rate whilst their marketing strategy team has no accountability for each failed lurch.
This is such a poor decision. They’re reversing all the cost cutting done to simplify the brand of BT Group. No wonder the shares are tumbling
How they ever thought to squash the BT name, begs scientific research.
BT is a bit stale and I can’t imagine it encourages younger generations to sign up. EE is at least a bit more modern. Perhaps they should have kept BT as an option or just for current customers, not try to force people to EE as happened with my parents.
Im with VM but am considering changing as theyre now charging me over £100/m for bb/tv/phone – they dont care about customers whove been with them for years. Only reason Ive stayed is I like their Tivo box and remote, and that all is bundled together. But if BT TV offers similar channel choice and ability to record programmes, Ill certainly consider it if it’s a more reasonable price.
even if it is a reasonable price you would still have to switch to EE and broadband and tv if you wanted a faster internet speed, as BT only offers a max of 900Mbps
Personally I think this puts right a number of questionable decisions. It puts customers back into a consistent brand after several years of mix and match.
Trying to remove BT from retail always seemed a bit flawed to me, given the high level of brand recognition and substantial user base.
I have fully migrated to EE after decades on BT, and I only did that because it was financially beneficial to take EE One. Having everything on one account is very easy.
I’m pleased to see this whole mess is finally getting sorted out in the right way.