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BT chief defends IPTV service
Thursday 8th January 2009, by Daniel King
The chief executive of BT Vision has reiterated his belief that the service will "revolutionise" television in the UK.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Dan Marks defended the perceived slow uptake of BT's internet protocol television (IPTV) service.
Despite celebrating its second anniversary this year, BT Vision still holds just 350,000 users in the UK.
And according to the newspaper, both Mr Marks and head of BT Retail Gavin Patterson have themselves snubbed the service in favour of Sky television, with the offer of live football coverage unavailable with BT Vision.
However, Mr Marks hit out at criticism over the low number of subscribers to the service, claiming that there was no way of reaching half a million customers without first going through the 350,000 mark.
"What do you mean it isn't catching on? We've had extremely rapid growth compared to other platforms, look at the early days of cable or Sky," he commented.
According to the latest figures released by Ofcom, BT Vision still lags far behind the success of BSkyB, which now has more than nine million pay-TV subscribers.
However, Mr Marks insisted that the broadband-based television service remains "fantastically compelling", offering customers a wide range of "quality programming".
He added that the ease and simplicity of the service, as well as the widespread replacement of older broadband infrastructure with a new fibre-optic network, means it will continue to attract consumer uptake in the future.
Earlier this month, internet service provider Tiscali announced that it has been forced to put an end to its IPTV service in Italy after failing to meet its targeted subscriber base of 200,000 by the end of 2008.
