BT grows BT Vision base and welcomes Canvas approval

The subscriber base of UK telco BT’s TV service, BT Vision, stood at 451,000 at the end of last year, up 15,000 on the previous quarter.

BT said the average number of video-on-demand views per month per subscriber grew over 40% year-on-year to reach 37. BT Vision is a hybrid service combining on-demand content delivered over BT’s network with access to the Freeview digital-terrestrial TV platform.

BT’s annual consumer ARPU grew by £5 (€5.69) to £301 in the course of the year, due to increased take-up of bundled offers. The telcos’s broadband customer base grew by 105,000 in the quarter to pass the five million mark.

BT welcomed the BBC Trust’s provisional approval for Project Canvas, the proposed broadband video-on-demand service to complement Freeview. BT is a member of the Canvas consortium. The telco is also anticipating that regulator Ofcom’s expected statement on whether pay-TV provider BSkyB will be required to sell wholesale access to premium channels at regulated prices will produce a result that will be beneficial to its ability to compete.

BT as a whole posted third quarter revenue of £5.198bn, down 4%, and EBITDA of £1.444bn, up 11% largely due to improvement in BT Global Services.