Malcolm Owen
Apple is reportedly in early-stage talks with the UK's BT over a potential new partnership, where customers of the EE broadband service could be offered an Apple TV to watch BT's own pay-TV channels, rather than using BT's existing set-top box.
The discussions center around British Telecom's carrier and broadband supplier EE, reports the Telegraph, with the proposals involving BT providing EE customers with an Apple TV to use. The Apple TV would be preloaded with apps that would offer access to pay TV content produced by BT, such as BT Sport, as well as those of other broadcasters.
There is already a relationship between Apple and EE, with the latter providing the Apple TV 4K for a monthly fee, but without a pay-TV element. Based on the report, the plan could alter this existing deal to add the preloaded channel apps.
BT already competes with existing pay TV companies Sky and Virgin Media, and provides its BT Broadband customers a set-top box that uses the home broadband connection, with customers able to access many free-to-air channels alongside paid channel packages. BT Sport, BT's main self-operated channel, is also available to view via mobile apps and on other platforms, including the Apple TV.
Neither BT nor Apple have commented on the report.
It is thought the deal is similar to the one made between Apple and Switzerland's Salt announced at WWDC 2018, with the telecoms and TV company offering the Apple TV as an alternative set-top box to customers. Similar deals have also been made with Canal+ in France, with Charter Spectrum also examining the concept of replacing traditional set-top boxes with the more compact Apple TV.
The proposal is likely to be part of BT's consumer chief Marc Allera's strategy to partner with other technology companies to improve its services. Allera is said to have doubted that BT could compete with firms like Apple and Amazon in developing the company's own set-top boxes, with a switch to producing the software experience on other platforms likely to be an easier prospect than to maintain hardware.
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Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
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18 Comments
This is kind of like Car Play, slowly inching more and more into being a really great, ready-made device for OEMs. Who would have thought a few years ago car buying decisions could be made on whether or not the car came with Car Play? It happens now all the time. It makes far more sense for TV providers like this to use a well made, updated and maintained product like AppleTV and free themselves of the hassle of developing their own.
BT / EE is not a cable company, BT is an ISP that uses Over The Air (terrestrial) broadcast. it uses FreeView with an Internet decryption component to decrypt the encrypted channels, that is included in the OverTheAir broadcast.
Great but can someone explain to me the reason the TV might be preferred over other boxes for these companies? Is it just Apple offering to provide the equipment free for the PR or is it because of some feature or capability the TV has?
On a related note, I just bought a Sony 4K TV. It runs Android - and it’s pissing me off.
I connected it so WiFi after I bought it so I could update the software. So far so good. Then I turned WiFi off since I only intend to use it as a monitor for my existing Apple TV, STB and so on, and don’t care to have Google listening in on what I do.
So I get to the settings page and this is what I see:
Seriously, WTF.
Why does Google want to continue to scan for WiFi networks for “location”. It’s a fucking TV - its location will never change. I like how they put “other Apps” in there as a catch all to allow pretty much anything.
So I turned both settings off and forgot about it. A couple weeks later I get a pop-up on my TV that there’s a new software update available. I’m wondering how it knows there’s a new update if I turned WiFi off and it doesn’t have a network connection. Sure enough WiFi is back on. I did the update and AGAIN turned it off.
I’m seriously pissed off this TV doesn’t respect my settings and “reactivates” WiFi on its own without my permission. I’m waiting to see if it does it again them I’m going to complain to Sony about this behavior.I know a LOT of TVs and set top boxes are now using Android. If this is how they behave (so they can continue sucking my data) then fuck them. Apple, if they were smart, could have an opening here in making a set top box that actually respects your privacy.
A bit surprised that BT would be the one to go this route, they've historically been quite inwards focussed with regard to their technology, and they've certainly got the clout to put out their own boxes. EE normally uses rebadged BT Smart Hubs which are pretty good.
Maybe they feel like they're on the back foot since they don't have the media presence that the other big providers, Sky and Virgin, have.