HD by default for Sports and Big Sports packages if you have switched to EE broadband

[Weerab1983]

According to an announcement on the EE community forums and when you look up packages with EE the sports and big sports package they now come with the sports channels in HD by default (without the £6 add on), but you need to switch to EE broadband to get it.

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/TV/Inclusive-HD-with-EE-TV-sport-packages/td-p/1484850

Wonder what will happen with the now entertainment channels with the discovery channel now. 

Strangely enough the discovery channel isn't listed at the moment with available channels in the entertainment package when you look to order it. Don't tell me they are taking that away!!! 

[Hooba]

Strikes me as an odd thing for them to do. This might be a bit of a reach, but I wonder if it's paving the way for them to offer the Sky Sports channels in UHD / Atmos. Their ordering system can't currently handle anything more than 2 states: Boost (HD)/ No Boost (SD). I suppose they could change those 2 states to HD / UHD? Who knows .... 

The announcement says: "All our TV packages that include TNT Sports or Sky Sports come with HD". So I assume the Now entertainment channels get bumped to HD too, provided you have a Sports sub.

[Weerab1983]

Not necessarily fair on those with entertainment packages that don't have sports added on though.

Leaves them out in the cold and possibly considering their options at the end of their contracts.

Bit strange that the discovery channel isn't being mentioned when you look at fake ordering as this was a bonus for entertainment and full works customers 

[Hooba]

I wonder how many customers they've lost by not being able to offer Sky's live UHD channels (which are all Sport channels). They lost me. I now contract direct with NowTV.

And this business about directing customers to Sky Stream. That looks like an act of desperation ....  And you can just imagine what the Sky Stream agents script says: "yeah, sure we can sign you up to Sky Stream, and yeah it's UHD !! oh, by the way, how much are you currently paying for your broadband?"

If they're losing sufficient numbers of TV and Broadband customers, they may need to take drastic action. Signing away £6 a month from a whole load of customers must really hurt their bottom line. 

[Weerab1983]

Maybe at some point they might ditch the entertainment package. Who knows though.

I have EE TV through EE for the pro box and sky stream but for the same price for the HD add for EE, I got whole home and my first puck free for the same price as the add on during black Friday, so win win until my EE contract expires anyway then I have my own decision to make 

[Midnight_Voice]

@Hooba 

If people do what you did, going to Now direct to get UHD Sky Sports, that’s £35 a month off EETV’s bottom line, making £6 pale into insignificance.

I wonder how long it will be before EE and BT ditch the EETV albatross in favour of Sky Stream; there may only be a little kickback to be had from Sky, but the savings from dismantling the whole tottering edifice of EETV must be enormous, to say nothing of freeing up the teams of TMC people vainly trying to shore up Multicast.

[Hooba]

They’re not going to get rid of TV. 

To be a competitive comms business they have to be able to offer the holy grail of triple play (broadband, telephony, digital TV). 

The sole reason BT started up a Sports channel was to massively bid up the price Sky had to pay for Premier League TV. It certainly wasn’t to make money. By doing that, after spending £billions, but costing Sky £billions more, BT eventually forced Sky allow BT to wholesale Sky’s TV channels. So that BT, just like Sky, could deliver triple play. So - they are not going to walk away from TV.  The battle that BT fought to be able to wholesale Sky channels went on for years and years and years. All the way back in 2009, because Openreach were forced into Local Loop Unbundling, Sky was able to become a telephony and broadband provider in its own right. Alongside their TV service , that was an extinction level event for BT. BT eventually got their way. In effect - they won. 

I can only speak for myself, but I haven’t entertained anyone other than BT/EE for my broadband for very many years - because bundling together my phone, TV, and broadband through a single provider makes economic sense.

Which is why BT / EE sending people SKy’s way for Sky Stream looks utterly desperate. I suspect BT / EE have had people wanting to walk away because BT / EE are only offering HD in a UHD world. One way to keep 2 of the 3 parts (broadband / telephony) is to make it clear to punters that they can keep both with EE whilst still accessing Sky Stream.

It looks from the outside like an unholy mess. 

EDIT: It's not £35 off the EE bottom line. It's also what people are paying for their broadband and phone. People won't just shift their Sky Sports - they'll shift everything else too. At least, that's the risk.

[Midnight_Voice]

@Hooba 

Well, you said £6 originally, and I was never quite sure which £6 that was - the free HD they have been forced into? But you now have EE/BT’s revenue from you down by £35, and you are still using their broadband, phone, and for all I know, the remaining bits of the ragbag that is EETV.

But for the triple play to make economic sense from the customer’s point of view, there has to be a discount thrown in somewhere; I was getting Entertainment/Cinema/Ultraboost for £10 all in, direct from Now, before I signed up for EETV, who nominally wanted £26 for them with just ordinary Boost. And are collecting that, though my saving is elsewhere.

But EE offering Sky Stream is like the train companies selling National Express bus tickets 😛

[Hooba]

My point was that giving up £6 a month from customers must stand to cost EE a lot of money. So there must be a pretty compelling reason to take, what on the face of things, looks like a drastic course of action.

Everything after that is pure speculation on my part e.g. that such a seemingly drastic course of action may be an attempt to stem the bleed of customers jumping ship. But a £6 discount isn't likely to cut it - what they really need to do is deliver UHD, and perhaps doing away with the current SD / HD tiers, and replacing those with HD / UHD night be just about doable even for EE.

Triple play makes sense for both seller and buyer - the seller holds just one account, issues one set of bills, can find room across multiple margins to compete on price, ties customers into 24 month contracts across multiple services; the buyer gets a slightly better deal. 

For info - yes, I'm still with EE for broadband, can't leave as I'm tied into a 24 month contract, one that I took out when I renewed contract for both TV and Broadband. I'm also with them for mobile - because they felt they could offer me decent discount alongside my TV and Broadband. And yes, I'm still left with an element of TV - TNT Sport, for 2 reasons: 1) I signed a contract to pay for at least one TV package for the duration of the 24 months, and 2) because I like TNT Sport. But you see how it works? That's why Triple Play is the holy grail for comms companies. And why, although BT/EE no longer have any channels of their own, they aren't going to step away from wholesaling a compelling TV offer.

[Popeye13_Official]

So im mere months into a two year deal with them which didn't include HD, instead using Discovery+ to watch TNT in both HD and UHD, but they've decided not to apply HD as a standard by not adding it to existing customers, meaning i can only 'add HD' by something they call Flexing, which i don't understand and would likely not be able to keep the existing price i signed-up at.

An omnishambles comes to mind!!