 | |
| Company type | Service |
|---|---|
| Industry | Pay television |
| Founded | 5 December 2006 |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
Area served | United Kingdom |
| Products | Digital television |
| Parent | BT Consumer |
| Website | www |
EE TV (formerly BT Vision and then BT TV until 2023) is a subscription IPTV service offered by EE; a brand of British telecommunications company BT Group. It requires the signing up to and use of the EE Broadband internet and phone service, with connection via EE's official router, the EE Smart Hub.
When British Telecom (BT) was privatised in 1984, it was barred from providing television broadcasts over its telecommunication network, which meant that it was not possible for BT to provide a cable television service. The ban was designed to protect the new smaller telecommunications companies and the small cable television networks in the United Kingdom as it was felt that BT had an unfair advantage because its pre-privatisation monopoly meant that its equipment was already installed in virtually every home and business in the country. In January 2001, the ban was lifted. [1]
Despite the ban on BT offering cable services, it did offer to customers in the 1990s analogue satellite receivers compatible with the Astra satellite system (with built-in VideoCrypt decoders for receiving the Sky Multichannels package); these boxes were rebadged versions of receivers built by other companies, such as the BT SVS200 being a Cambridge ARD200. [2]
BT Vision was launched on 5 December 2006, competing with Sky, Virgin Media (then known as NTL:Telewest) and TalkTalk Plus TV (then known as Tiscali TV). [3] Initial industry reaction was positive although there was some criticism that set up costs were expensive and it was noted that BT Group were entering a competitive market. [4] In May 2007, BT Group launched a national advertising campaign for BT Vision. [5] BT Vision was the second IPTV television platform in the UK, after Homechoice TV.
The aim was to attract "hundreds of thousands" of customers by the end of 2007 and 2–3 million in the medium-term. However, adoption was slow and by February 2008 BT Vision had just 150,000 customers. [6] On 7 January 2008, BT reached a deal with Microsoft where the latter's Xbox 360 console would have provided BT Vision's on demand content. The service was due to launch in mid-2008 but never materialised. From late May 2008, BT Vision discontinued free access to BBC TV replay, instead requiring Vision users to take out a monthly subscription. However, in November 2010, BT announced that BT Vision subscribers would be able to access the BBC iPlayer from the end of June 2011. [7] This service was built by Pushbutton for Microsoft Mediaroom.
BT acquired the rights to carry 242 same-day (but not live) Premier League football matches per season in a three-year deal covering the 2007–08, 2008–09 and 2009–10 seasons in a joint bid with BSkyB on 25 May 2006, prior to BT Vision's launch. [8] BT Vision also have the right to offer on demand coverage of 125 matches each season from the Football League and League Cup. This service ceased prior to the start of the 2010–11 season.
Between August 2007 and June 2009, Setanta Sports was available through BT Vision, via DTT and a smart card, offering live Premiership and Scottish Premier League games, as well as other sporting events such as US PGA Tour Golf and Magners League Rugby. BT Vision made a deal with American sports TV company ESPN [9] for carriage of its new channel which replaced Setanta on DTT.
On 28 June 2010, BT and Sky signed an agreement where Sky Sports 1 and 2 will be available for BT Vision customers. [10] This came a year after BT stopped offering Setanta Sports 1 & 2 on Vision after Setanta lost the rights to broadcast Premier League football. [11] The company announced the pricing of their Sky Sports packages in July 2010, following the outcome of Ofcom's review into pay-TV pricing in March, which directed Sky to reduce the wholesale price it charges for the Sky Sports channels. [12] The price charged to customers signing up for broadband, calls and TV with BT for a two-year contract results in the organisation making a "significant loss on the service", [13] [14] allowing them to undercut the price charged by Sky to its own customers. [13] As of 2011, BT Vision had 638,000 subscribers, whereas Sky TV had over 10 million and Virgin Media had 3.76 million. [15]
BT then made several deals to expand its offerings on BT Vision. UKTV original content on-demand from later in the day was added as part of a deal (featured programmes included James Martin's Mediterranean (Good Food), Choccywoccydoodah (Good Food), Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (Home), Celebrity Fantasy Homes (Home), Tool Academy (Really), Bridezillas (Really), Amazing Planet (Eden) and Life on Fire (Eden)). [16] Linear channels from UKTV started streaming later in 2012, namely Watch, GOLD and Alibi, and later Good Food, Eden and Home. [17] On 11 April 2012, BT and Fox International Channels announced that from late 2012, BT Vision customers would be able to watch FX (which became Fox) as a linear channel as well as on-demand and watch library programmes on-demand. [18] On 1 March 2016, Fox was removed from the BT TV line-up. National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo Wild were also added in 2012. On 8 November 2012, BT signed a contract with British Eurosport to add British Eurosport 1 and 2 to its line-up of linear TV channels. [19] The deal included sporting content to watch on demand. On-demand content was later removed but re-added in mid 2018 following the signing of a new deal with Eurosport's current owners Discovery.
On 21 September 2012, BT, one of the partners of YouView, announced that they would provide a free YouView box to its broadband subscribers. This new service will allow customers to access BT Vision's on demand content, YouView's EPG technologies such as 'scrollback', and Now TV. This came weeks after TalkTalk launched its new YouView-based TV service TalkTalk Plus TV. YouView from BT launched on 26 October 2012. [20]
On 27 June 2013, the CEO of BT's TV division, Marc Watson, said that BT Vision will be rebranded as 'BT TV', together with the YouView service under an umbrella brand. BT aimed to offer sports on the YouView service. However, on 1 August 2013, BT was refused by rival BSkyB to broadcast Sky Sports on BT's YouView service. [21] This meant that the Vision+ box would continue to be distributed for the purpose of Sky Sports and the extra linear channels, as long until these features would be finally available on BT YouView.
BT started rebranding its TV services as BT TV between May and August 2013. [22] On 9 August 2013, the 18 extra linear channels from BT Vision were successfully added to the BT YouView EPG and ready for streaming. [23] Just two days prior to this, both BT and TalkTalk asked Digital UK to expand the streamed IP channel range from 400–499 to 400–599, as they both claim to launch over a hundred new streamed channels via YouView. The Vision service that continued to be provided to Sky Sports customers closed entirely on 30 June 2014, with all customers getting a free upgrade to its modern YouView service. [24]
At the time of the rebrand, BT was also preparing to launch its BT Sport network, after the company had acquired a share of the rights to Premier League football television coverage for the 2013–14 to 2015–16 seasons [25] [26] and an exclusive rights deal for the broadcast of Premiership Rugby from the 2013–14 season. [27] For customers who didn't have access to BT's fibre-optic network, they could watch these channels via DTT on a Vision+ box, but on 24 January 2014 BT ceased to sell BT Sport via DTT, and subsequently ceased provision of BT Sport 2 via DTT on 1 January 2015, followed by BT Sport 1 closing on DTT on 2 June 2015. [28]
The carriage for Sky's Sky Movies (now known as Sky Cinema) channels and on-demand content became available to customers from 26 October. [29] On 10 November 2014 BT and YouView announced that the Netflix player had been made available on BT & retail Humax YouView boxes. [30] Sky Sports 1 & 2 were made available to YouView customers on Tuesday 16 December 2014 following an interim ruling from the Appeal Court backing Ofcom's ruling that YouView is to be included in the "Wholesale Must Offer" of the channels. [31]
BT TV initially provided three packages at launch: TV Essential, Essential Extra, and Unlimited Extra. On 24 April 2015 it revised its packages as follows (alongside additional unicast streaming bolt-ons for Netflix, BT Kids and BT Music, and multicast IPTV bolt-ons for Sky Sports and Movies): [32]
The American AMC channel launched for the first time in the UK exclusively for BT customers on 28 August 2015 and was also available to order free of charge on all EE TV packages and to Sky TV customers who also subscribe to the BT Sports Pack. [33] In June 2018 it was announced that Amazon Prime Video would be available through BT TV, [34] followed by Now TV in April 2020. [35]
In 2022, BT TV kicked off the transition of going fully IPTV with its aerial-based Freeview channels starting to be offered via broadband, which is called "Internet Mode" on the new set-top boxes. Both rivals Sky and Virgin Media had at the time also launched full IPTV services called Stream [36]
In October 2023, it was announced that the service would be renamed to EE TV by December, adapting EE's logo and name. [37] It is not to be confused with a previous service under the same name that was launched by EE in 2014. [38] Along with the rebrand, Apple TV+ was launched on EE TV. [39]
The following is a list of live TV channels [40] on the EE TV platforms with their EPG numbers, correct as of 11 February 2024. All channels are offered to the viewer via IPTV with the relevant subscription from EE TV:
The very first BT Vision PVR (personal video recorder) in 2007, dubbed the "V Box" and combining IPTV and DTT, with a 160GB hard disk was grey and was initially made by Philips. The box can also access standard definition Freeview broadcasts where available. [41] Similar to Sky+ and V+ it enabled 80 hours of television programmes to be recorded while watching other live programmes. It was announced in 2008 that Motorola would be the new supplier of the boxes. [42] [43]
The next generation shiny black Vision+ box was made by Pace and released in 2009. [44] The original silver Vision+ boxes were of no use as of 30 June 2014; all customers received a free upgrade to YouView, worth £199, if they recontracted for 18 months. Users of the black Vision+ boxes were unaffected. [45]
BT released a Humax set top box (DTR-T1000) in late 2012 offering Freeview HD services, linear VOD HD channels through BT Infinity, and on-demand boxsets, catchup TV and other new features as part of the newly launched YouView service. [46] As of February 2024, these old boxes are no longer supported and cannot access internet-based content. [47] A new upgraded and fanless box YouView+ (Humas DTR-2100) launched in early 2014. [48]
In 2017, the BT YouView+ Ultra HD box (technically a Humax HDR-T4000) was launched as part of the new generation of PVR set-top boxes, competing against its rivals's offerings namely Sky Q and the Virgin V6 box. [49] In 2021, the TV Box Pro was launched which added Wi-Fi and HDR support. It has 1 TB of storage, double that of its predecessor. [50] Following rebranding to EE TV, it is currently offering the EE TV Box Pro (a PVR), EE TV Box Mini (without recording capabilities), and it has also launched EE TV as an app for the Apple TV 4K. [51]
Sky UK Limited, doing business as Sky is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television, internet, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of Sky Group and, from 2018 onwards, part of Comcast. It is the UK's largest pay-TV broadcaster, with 12.7 million customers as of the end of 2019 for its digital satellite TV platform. Sky's flagship products are Sky Q and the internet-based Sky Glass, and its flagship channels are Sky Showcase, Sky Max, and Sky Atlantic.
Top Up TV was a pay TV service in the United Kingdom that was launched in March 2004, operating on the digital terrestrial television platform. The service aimed to "top up" Freeview customers by providing additional content and services through encrypted TV channels unavailable to other viewers.
Setanta Sports Media is a sports television company based in Dublin, Ireland and in Tbilisi, Georgia, broadcasting throughout select Eurasian countries, and the Philippines. The company was formed in 1990 to facilitate the broadcasting of Irish sporting events to international audiences. The company previously operated channels in Ireland, the UK, Asia, Africa, Australia, the United States, and Canada. It is currently owned by Georgia-based media outlet Adjarasport.
Now is a subscription over-the-top streaming television service operated by British satellite television provider Sky Group and American cable provider Xfinity. Launched in the United Kingdom in 2012, the service is also available in Ireland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the United States.
Sky Deutschland GmbH, branded as Sky, is a German media company that operates a direct broadcast satellite Pay TV platform in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It provides a collection of basic and premium digital subscription television channels of different categories via satellite and cable television.
TalkTalk TV is a UK-based consumer television and video on demand service, operated by the TalkTalk Group. It originally launched in 2000. In September 2012, the current TalkTalk TV was launched in partnership with YouView. Its television and video on demand service is delivered over a BT phone line, using ADSL or VDSL. It provides IPTV, video on demand, telephony and broadband internet access.
Virgin TV is a digital pay cable television service in the United Kingdom, owned by Liberty Global (50%) and Telefónica (50%) after the merger its UK businesses to form Virgin Media O2. Its origins date from NTL and Telewest, formerly two of the UK's largest cable operators, which merged on 6 March 2006. All NTL:Telewest services were rebranded as Virgin Media in February 2007. Since the acquisition of Smallworld Cable in 2014, Virgin is the sole national cable TV provider in Great Britain. Currently about 51% of UK households have access to Virgin's network, which is independent from BT's Openreach network.
On Demand was the brand name of a range of video on demand services from Sky UK designed to compete with rival companies such as Virgin TV or EE TV as well as internet television services such as Amazon Prime Video and Netflix.
There are four major forms of digital television (DTV) broadcast in the United Kingdom: a direct-to-home satellite service from the Astra 28.2°E satellites provided by Sky UK, a cable television service provided by Virgin Media ; a free-to-air satellite service called Freesat; and a free-to-air digital terrestrial service called Freeview. In addition, an IPTV system known as BT TV is provided by BT. Individual access methods vary throughout the country. 77% of the United Kingdom has access to HDTV via terrestrial digital television. Satellite is the only source of HDTV broadcast available for the remaining 23%.
Television in France was introduced in 1931, when the first experimental broadcasts began. Colour television was introduced in October 1967 on La Deuxième Chaîne.
High-definition television in the United Kingdom is available via cable, IPTV, satellite and terrestrial television. The first high-definition broadcasts began in late 2005 and since then the number of channels available to view has grown to a maximum of 87 that can be viewed on pay-TV service, Sky.
YouView TV Ltd. is a British media company, a partnership of four broadcasters: the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5; and two telecommunications operators, BT Group and TalkTalk Group. It launched in 2012 the hybrid television platform named YouView, which was formed from an ambitious project between the UK's four terrestrial broadcasters originally titled Project Canvas.
Astra 2F is one of the Astra communications satellites owned and operated by SES S.A., launched in September 2012 to the Astra 28.2°E orbital position. The satellite provides free-to-air and encrypted direct-to-home (DTH) digital television and satellite broadband services for Europe and Africa.
TNT Sports is a group of pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe and BT Group, they first launched on 1 August 2013. The channels are based at Warner Bros. Discovery's complex in Chiswick Business Park, London, having been based at Here East, the former International Broadcast Centre in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London until July 2023. The channels are available on the EE TV, Sky and Virgin Media television platforms in the UK and Sky and Vodafone TV in the Republic of Ireland.
Eir Sport was a group of Irish television sports channels operated by Eircom Sport Limited, a subsidiary of Eir. In December 2015, Eir purchased original Setanta Sports operations in the Republic of Ireland, which the company rebranded as Eir Sport on 5 July 2016.
This is a timeline of cable television in the United Kingdom.
WIND Vision was a Greek digital television service introduced by Wind Hellas in April 2018.
This is a timeline of sports channels in the UK other than Sky Sports, BT Sport and Premier Sports/FreeSports. The timeline also includes sports events which were shown on non-sports non-terrestrial channels. The timeline also includes sports coverage broadcast on streaming services.
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