The evolution of the BT TV box

[mrm1962]

Recently reading articles on various forums that Freely replacing freeview/Youview I wonder if this will come to the EE tv box the current offering delivered by aerial and even internet is rather limited  compared to the competition and considering BT are mainly focused on internet as opposed to historically landlines seems to be a no brainer and would be a real boost to both customers and market share to their business

Also adding a few more apps Disney Acorn would also be great additions

I would hope BT /EE are actively looking into this 

Just my thoughts after 6 months as EE subscriber

[zulu17]

I believe Tim Davie BBC delivered a major speech this week and one of the many elements indicated what was being considered for Freely.  Couple of points Youview is already I believe  involved in Freely ,  also it is always challenging to launch and maintain products designed specifically for a single country with no obvious international market. 

It would be useful for EE Tv to share some of its roadmap with us but that is unlikely to happen. 

Acorn is available on the EE TV box Pro/ Mini as an addon  subscription to the Prime Video app.

Disney is a disappointing nonarrival  particularly as it was listed by Youview as coming although many would have access to the app on smart TVs , Apple TV etc

[stereohaven]

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@zulu17 wrote:

I believe Tim Davie BBC delivered a major speech this week and one of the many elements indicated what was being considered for Freely.  

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It's here, buried in amongst a load of waffle about "trust" and "disinformation".

@mrm1962  wrote:

Just my thoughts after 6 months as EE subscriber

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As a YouView, BT and EE TV subscriber across multiple different types of hardware for about 10 years, I know the following to be true:

• What YouView decide is important bears no relation to what customers may actually want or feedback, I know this having been a member of "MyView" and various customer panels/forums of theirs for most of that time
• I have never been convinced that anyone at BT/EE truly knows about building a good quality, joined up TV service. This is demonstrated by the various foibles around how it works (or doesn't) currently
• The Multicast service for delivering live TV across broadband was (and remains), light years ahead of what others offer - BT/EE have just never been able to build on that unique advantage
• YouView/BT/EE staff will tell you "this" or "that" is coming, and it might be, but everything is glacial, or "down to the rights holders" or poor negotiation

EE TV is what it is, not terrible, not great, but what you get is what you get. There is always an excuse why something is late, or not available, or not the same app version as everywhere else.

If Freely do release a streaming box to accelerate take up (it's in the DG speech), and Freely is built by YouView (it is), so you could add the experience to any TV you own without a contract, why would you bother with EE TV?

Because it can record is the only reason I can think of, and it won't be allowed to do that forever either. The best thing you can do with EE TV is use it as is and not worry about what it isn't.

[Lee14801]

Yes, I wish EE TV would look at a new box at the moment. I’m having to use the aerial connection to make sure that I get the most recording possible because that way you can skip to all the ads I would use the Internet connection if I was able to record more channels that way And more apps would be like 

[Weerab2024]

With a complete sale of EEs 50% ownership of TNT sport to WBD reported to be close according to the Financial Times, I really wonder what EE TV will look like in a years time. 

Interesting times, if you look at what has happened to Talk Talks TV offering in the last year. 

[stereohaven]

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I think the deal to sell Sky Stream was the starting gun on the end of EE TV (well, their own hardware anyway).

It makes zero commercial sense to support the cost of the hardware and the multicast network that goes into EE TV, when your market share is tiny and you have (along with Virgin Media), the most complained about TV service in the market.

I still see mileage in the Apple TV 4K set up personally, although it still needs work to be considered significantly better than just buying TV Launcher for £6 and doing it yourself in my view, but the potential is there.

As a business, BT/EE should focus on being an aggregator of app based services and just clip the ticket, rather than deal with the cost and support of a fairly poorly received TV service.

The two other factors being Freely becoming more widely available over time and PVRs heading towards end of life. There is no way Sky is going to let EE record NOW streams once Sky Q is officially retired, which will be 2029 at the latest if the hardware is still going at that point.

P.S. People at EE may pop up as usual and disagree, but they don’t make these decisions, the bean counters do.

[Weerab2024]

EE staff probably won't know until the writing is officially on the wall.

There hasn't been any major developments on the channels or hardware for 3 years and 2 years respectively.

I think once Freely do launch a streaming device as the BBC chairman had mentioned in his speech last week, EE will have lost on the competitive edge that they could have built on when they launched IP channels, but failed to add to. 

[stereohaven]

100% @Weerab2024 👍

The lack of investment in new content partners, the glacial delivery of apps (9 years for YouTube from when we first saw testing for it), extricating themselves from TNT Sport fully, the changing ways we all consume content etc. are all factors.

Sky are also struggling with some of this, cutting jobs and I suspect, struggling with value/retention.

[Weerab2024]

Interestingly I also seen that the main PSBs are thinking again of combining their streaming services under one app under iPlayer or itvx player in order to bolster their streaming against the welcome competition of US FAST apps like Pluto, Plex and Tubi. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2enydkew3o

If I remember rightly this was already thought of project kangaroo, which youview was born from? Full circle it may seem.

I guess that would depend on if ITV gets bought out and would be a stepping stone to freely for those not interested in a new freely tv or streaming device.