UK incumbent BT has been adding more content to its top drawer ready for its IPTV roll-out in the late summer/autumn. In January the company announced deals with leading documentary maker National

Geographic Channel and the children’s TV programmers HIT Entertainment and Nelvana. And in February it revealed that Endemol is going to license programming and develop interactive content, including products that are specially tailored for the BT platform. These agreements follow licensing deals with BBC Worldwide, Paramount and Warner Music Group.

No contract

BT is building a catalogue of movies, television programmes and music videos that will be made available on-demand to anyone buying its BT-branded set-top boxes from retail. The service - yet to be named - will not carry a subscription/access fee or contract, meaning UK consumers are about to be given their first taste of pay-as-you-go VOD across a managed private network with guaranteed Quality of Service. The service will provide an interesting insight into whether consumers who have stayed away from subscription TV can be tempted by pay-per-view content they can watch whenever they like.

BT will not say how much - if any - of its on-demand content will be made available free, although it is known that ‘Replay-TV’, where programmes are made available on-demand after broadcast (say for seven days), will be part of the offer.

A spokesman would only comment: “Flexibility will be a key element of our pricing. There will not be any mandatory subscription and there will be flexible options.”

BT is deploying a hybrid solution where the live broadcast TV will be provided courtesy of the UK’s digital terrestrial bouquet, Freeview. The BT set-tops (which are also Digital Video Recorders with 80Gb hard drives) will contain a DSL connection and DTT tuner and will carry MPEG-2 decoders for over-the-air reception and MPEG-4 Part 10 (H.264/AVC) decoders for all video delivered over the BT network.

Philips receivers

Philips is providing the receivers, building on its reputation for working with big-brand platform operators in getting set-top boxes into retail channels. The CE giant is currently working with Premiere for free-to-air satellite receivers and HDTV set-tops in Germany and Austria, and already supplies the UK’s digital terrestrial market with its own branded receivers.

Once consumers take home their set-top box they will be able to access Freeview channels immediately, assuming they are within DTT coverage. The existing network of 80 DTT transmitters reaches 73 per cent of UK homes (the eventual target is 98.5 per cent DTT coverage).

BT has committed to making the new service available nationally, and not just in metropolitan areas. A spokesman adds: “There are nearly 14 million homes in the UK connected to subscription television of one sort or another and about as many again who are subscriptionresistant, and we see that as our potential market: people interested in digital television and perhaps interested in interactivity and the on-demand content we can offer them, but who don’t want to commit to that monthly subscription. People who would rather pick and choose what they buy.”

A key design requirement for the BT service is that the Electronic Programme Guide integrates the on-demand and interactive elements seamlessly with the live broadcast TV. Viewers will also be able to programme their BT Philips DVRs via the EPG. There is no question of consumers being confronted with a live TV Freeview ‘portal’ and a BT on-demand portal when they switch on their televisions. “That has been a key element in the development of the EPG,” says the telco.

BT is promising “new and interesting” interactive TV features and is working on new advertising concepts.

“Some of the interactive elements will make a big difference to the advertising industry and generally the way that advertisers reach customers,” it reveals. “Interactivity is going to be key.”

BT won’t comment on whether this includes adverts within the EPG but according to Freeview, there is nothing that prevents commercialisation of service guides that cover the free-to-air DTT bouquet.