BT group has signed a joint marketing agreement with Freeview, the free-to-air digital television service, and has plans to enter the pay-per-view TV market, according to reports this week.
The telecoms giant, which already has a similar deal with BSkyB, will be selling set-top boxes on the BT website. Regular Freeview receivers offering the 30+ free digital channels currently available on the platform will cost £90 while boxes which also provide internet and phone access will cost £129.
The arrangement with Freeview is designed to head off competition from cable companies NTL and Telewest. The DTT service, which launched last year, is now present in 2.1 million UK homes, according to the findings of Continental Research (see Digital TV Now Reaches More Than 10 Million UK Homes).
The tie-up with Freeview comes in the same week that BT has sought to play down its pay-per-view ambitions. According to the Financial Times, the operator is in talks with Netgem and SetPal, which produce Freeview receivers, about developing set-top boxes that will connect between the high-speed broadband internet and televisions. This would allow subscribers to watch films and other video content downloaded from the internet.
BT recently launched a joint broadband venture with Yahoo! (see BT & Yahoo! Launch New Broadband Product) but said this week that a digital/internet pay-per-view service would not be ready in the near future.
