UK telco BT has terminated its agreement with set-top box vendor Pace for the latter to provide it with YouView boxes, according to reports in the Financial Times.
The reports quote a BT spokesperson as saying: “BT has agreed with Pace that the company will no longer develop BT’s YouView set-top box”, and add that Pace will however continue to supply the boxes for its IPTV service ‘BT Vision’.
This appears to mark the end of an unhappy alliance between the two UK companies on the YouView project: BT indicated last September that it would have to launch its YouView offerings with boxes from another STB vendor, Korean firm Humax, after Pace failed to deliver them on time.
YouView boxes combine linear television channels via the ‘Freeview’ DTT platform with over-the-top content from a range of sources, including the catch-up players from all the main UK broadcasters, and Sky’s OTT service ‘Now TV’.
The partners behind YouView (broadcasters the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five, ISPs BT and TalkTalk, and broadcast services firm Arqiva) started delivering software updates for the platform recently, adding surround-sound capability, faster start-up times, grouping of recordings and more.
So far three UK telcos have started offering packages based on the YouView platform – BT, TalkTalk and JT Group. TalkTalk recently revealed that it is now signing up around 1,000 subscribers each day.
Via Financial Times
