BT has announced plans to swap out its original TV set-tops and replace them with YouView units. The exchange will take place by the end of this quarter. Strong demand for TV and superfast broadband have given the telco its first increase in consumer revenues for a decade. The rebranded BT TV service has recently reached one million installs, adding 46,000 over the last quarter, but the telco warned it was anticipating some churn as a result.
From its launch in 2006, BT Vision used Philips/Pace boxes loaded with Microsoft Mediaroom. Few of the features demonstrated by Microsoft before its sale of the business to Ericsson were ever incorporated into BT Vision and in early 2012, BT dropped Mediaroom altogether in favour of the Linux-based Oregan Networks middleware. In July 2012 came the launch of YouView, in which BT is a partner, effectively spelling the end of the original platform.
A new smaller and sleaker YouView box is now being deployed with new BT TV customers. The news was released as BT announced a revenue increase of 9% in the quarter, driven by 24% growth in broadband and TV revenue reflecting the impact of BT Sport.
There were 249,000 BT retail fibre net additions in the quarter, taking the customer base now to over 2.1m. We added 46,000 TV customers bringing the total to 1m.
