Hot on the heels of the unveiling of more details regarding the future launch of Freely, the replacement for Freeview, rivals are stepping up their game to offer more competitive alternatives.
- To get the most out of Freely, viewers will need a full fibre broadband connection
- Broadband market dominated by EE (BT), Sky and Virgin Media who are stepping up to offer alternative streaming TV solutions
- Sky partnering up with alternative full fibre broadband providers to offer Sky Stream
- Virgin Media offers its streaming TV product as part of its social tariff.
Everyone TV, the platform operator backed by the main UK free-to-air broadcasters, is preparing to launch the next generation Freely platform.
The platform will ultimately replace Freeview, Freeview Play and Freesat. Freely users can choose between combining existing terrestrial or satellite TV services with streamed channels or go online-only from the beginning.
In time, as more services stop terrestrial or satellite broadcasts, Freely devices can automatically switch to an online stream of the same channel. Freely devices can also default to a better quality (e.g. HD) IP stream over a terrestrial/satellite SD channel.
However, to benefit from the full Freely service and future developments, anyone opting for the new service when it launches will need a reliable broadband service. This will be ideally a full fibre service to ensure the whole household has sufficient bandwidth to stream services.
But with EE (BT), Virgin Media and Sky dominating the UK’s broadband market, the trio now stand to gain from the move to streaming and to challenge the dominance of Freely by offering customers their own TV services at no or little extra cost.
Sky working with full fibre providers to attract users in rural areas
Sky is going one step further. As Sky Stream is available even if you don’t use Sky Broadband, it’s teaming up with independent full fibre providers to offer exclusive TV and Netflix bundles.
As rural areas and smaller towns are connected to full fibre broadband for the first time by alternative networks, Sky is enabling customers to add Sky Stream. For example, customers of Truespeed in South West England can add Sky Stream, including Sky Entertainment and Netflix for £23 a month. Sky has a similar deal with rural ISP Gigaclear, which covers a number of areas in southern England.
For users on internet providers without a deal with Sky, Sky Stream is still available as a standalone product. In addition to encouraging more users to ditch the dish, it’s also encouraging viewers to consider Sky as an option when they get full fibre for the first time.
The basic Sky Stream package with Netflix opens up a number of premium channels that won’t be carried on Freely.
For rural viewers where there might be a restriction on the placement of satellite dishes or where Freeview currently only offers a reduced number of channels (as relays don’t carry all channels), the arrival of full fibre and Sky Stream opens up a world of extra channels and on-demand services for the first time. With zero set-up fee, compared to having to buy a new Freely device, the Sky Stream proposition may seem very attractive Freely alternative to rural users.
Virgin Media offers streaming TV as part of social tariff
As a replacement for the current terrestrial-based universal TV platform, Freely will be tasked at making TV available to the elderly and people on low incomes.
But Virgin Media offers an alternative. It is already offering its Stream service for just a one-off £20 set-up fee to viewers who are eligible for its Essential Broadband Plus social tariff. This means households on benefits including Universal Credit who need a basic broadband service anyway can get access to Virgin’s TV service for less than the cost of buying a dedicated Freely streaming device.
- Essential Broadband Plus costs £20 a month with Stream available for a one-off additional £20, thereafter Stream is at no extra cost and can be cancelled with 30 days notice. Eligibility criteria on the Virgin Media website.
The downside is that Virgin Media is currently restricting access to its Stream product to users on its own broadband network. This means it isn’t yet a universal alternative, although it does cover most bigger urban areas.
EE’s offer
EE meanwhile has already begun to shift its TV customers off terrestrial TV. The original BT TV service which turned into EE TV last year began as a terrestrial/internet hybrid service. Now it’s doing what Freely aims to do over the next decade. All of EE’s newer receivers support IP-mode which allows viewers to ditch their aerial or dish.
At the present time, anyone opting for IP mode will lose some channels that were previously available. But as more broadcasters sign up to streaming, that’s expected to change.
Importantly, EE TV offers subscribers two extra devices to go multiroom at no extra cost.
For larger homes, with younger users more likely to watch on-demand TV and parents more inclined to subscribe to extra streaming services, this may work out as a more practical way to access TV as terrestrial and satellite TV declines.
Overall, EE TV and indeed EE is a whole is more premium offer that may well still attract users who want just a little more than the standard free TV services.
In a nutshell…
Sky is partnering up with rural full fibre providers to offer Sky Stream.
Virgin Media is offering low-income urbanites cheap access to its Stream service.
And EE is catering for better-off households who want a little more than just free TV as part of a more premium broadband bundle, packed with extra features.
That means for most households, there will be solid alternatives to Freely. Unlike the switch from analogue to digital TV, viewers will need to pay for an internet connection. As a result, Internet Service Providers can bundle streaming-only TV services for relatively little extra cost.
As a result, the breakthrough success of Freeview in the 00s in the run up to digital switchover isn’t necessarily guaranteed to be repeated for Freely in the run up to a likely IP/online switchover in the 2030s.
Freely is due to launch in the second quarter of 2024.
Marc Thornham