This topic

History Channel

londonman — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 20:02:23 GMT

I really like the History Channel

Why is BT cancelling it ?

Re: History Channel

NigelB72 — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 20:39:02 GMT

There's a few carriage licenses coming to an end and BT have chosen not to renew their carriage deal as History is available via the NowTV flexible packs

Re: History Channel

londonman — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 20:54:46 GMT

chosen not to renew as it wants the customers to go onto more expensive other deals

so the plan must be for this plant o naturally die as they do not renew any of the channels

Re: History Channel

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 21:06:12 GMT

I don't know the facts of this one, but remember that the History Channel is now owned by Sky and branded "Sky History". NowTV is owned by Sky, so they may not have wanted to renew the carriage contract with BT in the legacy TV package?

After the changes on the 1st March, I don't think that there will be any Sky branded channels left in the legacy package?

Re: History Channel

londonman — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 21:20:10 GMT

As bt has the now tv relationship .. i assume this decision has not been forced on bt

this makes the decision even worse and more cynical

Re: History Channel

NigelB72 — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 21:29:40 GMT

From a cost point of view it does appear that BT are winding down the legacy packs.

Re: History Channel

londonman — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 23:16:25 GMT

I would suggest it costs by nothing to keep these channels on place

bt knows that the customers who have this package like watching these channels .. so obviously they have to be cut ... but offered if you pay bt more for a bigger package with channels you don’t want

Re: History Channel

londonman — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 23:19:57 GMT

Probably costs by nothing to have this legacy pack .. they have recognised that documentary watches don’t want the other Channels .. so they have force customers on more expensive plans to get Channels they don’t want just to keep the channels they already have

Re: History Channel

DarrenDev — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 13:44:47 GMT

There are contractual and financial reasons why these channels MUST be shut down - and it has nothing to do with forcing people to pay more for the new packages.
It does cost a lot to broadcast channels - especially when it has to be done in multiple different formats to support all the different platforms on which you can watch BT TV. That's also a whole lot of multicast bandwidth that needs to be reserved across the BT network, which could be used to bring new channels to the lineup.

Re: History Channel

londonman — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 17:21:40 GMT

This makes little sense to me .. BT broadcasts the sky history channel via now tv

this is purely a choice not to have the same channel in this bundle

if history channel was being removed from BT that would be a different discussion

Re: History Channel

DarrenDev — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 17:46:48 GMT

My understanding (albeit old) was that they're different multicast streams from different sources, going via different encoders. Could be wrong - there's no-one around at the moment to check with.
Either way, we still have all the other streams needed to support other BT TV platforms. These won't be needed anymore, as Now TV stream their channels from their infrastructure in their app instead.

Re: History Channel

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 18:01:24 GMT

@DarrenDev

You said that the NowTV streams are "different multicast streams" - can you confirm that they are still miulticast, as opposed to unicast?

Re: History Channel

DarrenDev — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 18:03:56 GMT

Channels accessed from the TV Guide are multicast. When accessed via the Now TV app they're unicast (ABR).

Re: History Channel

londonman — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 16:32:25 GMT

shcok horror

just got a phone call from BT trying to convince me to go onto the new package

of course not offering me a refund for lsot channels

i asked how much to get an equivalent package to what i currently have .. was told £29.99 .. so £5.50 more than i am currently paying and £12.50 more than i was paying in November

shame on you BT