EE TV Cuts Price Of Netflix, Sky And Freeview Bundles

EE TV’s summer deal is back, and has now been expanded to offer discounts on most of its TV  and broadband bundles (including, this time around, the Sky Cinema bundle) – for a limited time.

The updated list of discounts includes Freeview channels via broadband (or an aerial), Netflix, Sports (Sky Sports via NOW, TNT Sports / Eurosport, or all of them), Sky’s entertainment and film channels, and more – depending on the plan you choose.

Last year, BT converted its TV service to EE TV (EE is also owned by BT). Since then, whether you’re a BT Broadband customer or an EE broadband customer – the pay-TV services you can subscribe to come from EE.

So, for example, with its current limited-time deal, BT / EE are offering the streaming Big Entertainment TV bundle, which includes several popular streaming services, Sky’s TV and film channels (via NOW TV), as well as a 4K Freeview recording box or a custom Apple TV 4K box, for just £25/month (instead of the usual £30/m) – for the whole duration of the contract – so that’s 24 months. 

 

In addition to BT’s ‘Entertainment’ bundles, there’s also an ongoing offer on the Sport bundle, which includes TNT Sports (formerly known as BT Sport), as well as Eurosport and Discovery+ for £16/month (instead of £20/m) for 24 months.

The upfront setup fee has also been waived for the duration of these offers, and there are more options (including a bundle that includes the new Sky Sports+ platform) – see the updated list of offers below.

As always, there are a few caveats – while the discount is set for 24 months, the prices WILL go up in March 2025, according to BT and EE’s new annual price increase model (which means an extra £2/month for the TV bundles and £3/month for broadband plans).

Also, remember that EE’s TV offers are only available as an add-on for BT and EE Broadband customers – so you can’t get any of them as a standalone offer (unlike Sky Stream, for example).

So, are EE/BT’s offers any good, and how do they compare to other recent TV offers? Read ahead for my thoughts.

• EE TV Offers For New Customers
• EE TV Offers For Existing Customers
• BT Broadband Offers

EE TV Platform Explained

Despite the new name and branding, EE TV’s services are almost identical to BT TV’s old bundles and prices – with the main new addition being the custom Apple TV 4K option.

As before, EE TV’s bundles are “flexible” – which means you can switch between them during your contract (and change the monthly price accordingly). So you can stay with ‘Entertainment’ for one month, then switch to ‘Sport’ for a couple of months (or add it on top), etc.

However, if you switch plans that you signed up for at a discounted price, you won’t get to keep the discount (unless there’s a new deal for existing customers at that time).

You also need to sign a 24-month broadband contract (either with EE or BT), so you can’t cancel EE TV altogether as long as you’re under contract.

The new EE TV platform offers subscribers a choice between three devices – the EE TV Pro Box (and its ‘Mini’ version)  – which is identical to the BT TV 4K Pro Box, and the newer Apple TV 4K EE Box.

The EE TV Box is a 4K/HDR YouView-based device with streaming apps and plenty of storage for Freeview recordings.

It supports Dolby Atmos audio, has 4 tuners (so you can record up to three shows on separate channels and watch a fourth), 1TB of storage, a Bluetooth remote, and both WiFi and Ethernet connectivity.

The EE TV Box Pro also supports quite a few streaming apps – Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video, NOW and more, as well as all the standard catch-up streaming apps – BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, My5, S4C, STV Player and BBC Sounds.

Also, EE finally launched a YouTube app on its 4K Pro Box (and its mini version) a few weeks ago.

While not as comprehensive as standalone streaming devices like the Amazon Fire TV sticks or Roku (a few major apps, such as Disney+, are still missing), EE’s box does include most of the important ones.

In addition to the streaming apps, EE’s box allows you to watch many (but not all) Freeview channels without an aerial and even record programmes from those channels to its internal hard drive, something both Sky Glass / Sky Stream and Virgin’s Stream Box can’t do.

Alternatively, EE TV offers an exclusive EE version of the Apple TV 4K box, which allows you to access EE TV’s services, including live Freeview channels, via a custom app.

EE TV Summer Offers

Last month, EE launched a bunch of summer discounts – and this week, the list has been expanded to include more content.

BT Broadband Discounts

Of course, since you can’t get EE TV without broadband from EE or BT, then there are currently broadband discounts as well.

Customers who haven’t yet signed up for BT’s broadband can get discounts on most of BT’s broadband plans. The current “bonus” is a £50 Mastercard Virtual Card that you get with some of the packages.

It’s difficult to compare broadband prices and offers directly, since prices often depend on your location and the type of plans and speeds you can get (check here), but a few examples of the current discounts are:

• Fibre Essential (36Mb) at £29.99/month for 24 months.
• Fibre 2 (67Mb), for £36.99/month for 24 months, and you also get a £50 reward card.
• Full Fibre 100 (150Mb), for £29.99/month for 24 months, with a £50 rewards card.
• Full Fibre 500 (500Mb), for  £42.99/month for 24 months, with a £50 rewards card.

Some of the plans include setup and connection costs, so check your specific offer. Also, keep in mind that the price will go up by £3/month every year on March 31.

Now, let’s go over the TV offers. From now until August 22, 2024 you can get most of EE TV’s bundles at a discount – and there are additional discounts for broadband bundles.

The EE TV Entertainment Bundle

• Sky’s streaming service – NOW – with its Entertainment Membership, which includes Sky’s TV channels such as Sky Atlantic and Sky Max. 
• Netflix’s Standard with Ads Plan – This plan lets you watch on two devices at a time, with 1080p picture quality. 
• Discovery+ (The ‘Basic’ tier only, which includes lifestyle, factual, and reality shows – without sports)
• The EE TV 4K Pro Box or the new EE-branded Apple TV box (both let you watch Freeview over broadband)

You can now get this package for £15/month (instead of £20/month), for the entire duration of your contract – 24 months.

It’s worth noting that EE TV ditched Netflix’s Basic plan this month (since it no long exists), for new customers – therefore you’ll now be getting the ad-supported Netflix plan.

Last year, we saw this bundle’s price go down to £12/month and even £10/month – but who knows whether it’ll ever go that low again.

Also, remember that the price will go up by £2/month each year, around March.

The EE TV Big Entertainment Bundle

• Sky’s streaming service – NOW – with its Entertainment Membership, which includes Sky’s TV channels such as Sky Atlantic and Sky Max, and the Cinema Membership, which includes over 1,000 movies on demand
• Netflix’s Standard with Ads Plan – This plan lets you watch on two devices at a time, with 1080p picture quality. 
• Discovery+ (The ‘Basic’ tier only, which includes lifestyle, factual, and reality shows – without sports)
• The EE TV 4K Pro Box or the new EE-branded Apple TV box (both let you watch Freeview over broadband)

You can now get this package for £25/month (instead of £30/month), for the entire duration of your contract – 24 months.

The EE TV Sport Bundle

• All 4 TNT Sports channels
• Eurosport 1 and 2 
• Discovery+ (Premium – which also includes the streaming versions of Eurosport and TNT Sports)
• The BT TV 4K Pro Box or the new EE-branded Apple TV box

You can now get this package for £16/month (instead of £20/month), for the entire duration of your contract – 24 months.

The EE TV Big Sport Bundle

• All 4 TNT Sports channels
• Eurosport 1 and 2
• NOW Sky Sports (with all 11 Sky Sports channels, including the new Sky Sports+)
• Discovery+ (Premium – which also includes the streaming versions of Eurosport and TNT Sports)
• The BT TV 4K Pro Box or the new EE-branded Apple TV box

You can now get this bundle for £5/month, for 3 months – but after the 3 months are up, it goes back up to the usual £45/month (and you have to sign a 24-month contract).

The EE TV Full Works bundle, which includes everything (entertainment and sports), is no longer discounted at this time – so it costs the usual £78/month.

Are EE TV’s Summer Offers Worth It?

Some of these discounts are attractive because they last for the whole duration of your contract – though, of course, that also means you’re locked in with BT /EE for 24 months.

The Big Sport bundle, however, is only discounted for 3 months – which sounds worse, but you’re actually getting a similar discount (£120 in total on Big Sports), it’s just divided differently.

However, we have seen bigger discounts from EE TV in the past, so that’s something to keep in mind.

So let’s start with the Entertainment bundle:

Without EE, the Standard with Ads Netflix plan costs £4.99/month, and the NOW Entertainment membership costs £9.99/month if you buy it directly – so £14.98/month in total (but that’s without taking into account the fact that you can almost always find cheaper NOW deals).

And then, we also need to factor in Discovery+ Basic, which you now get as part of the EE TV bundle. If you sign up to Discovery+ directly – the Basic plan costs £3.99/month – which comes down to a total of £18.97/month. 

 

 

So, at the regular EE price of £20/month, not only are you not saving money with the EE Entertainment Package – you’re paying slightly more – but you’re also getting the BT TV Pro 4K box or the Apple TV 4K Box (and those are especially useful for those who want to watch Freeview without an aerial).

A similar Freeview recorder, which also includes streaming apps, like the Humax Aura (see our review), costs around £250. So you’re basically getting an expensive recorder/streaming box at no extra cost (but you have to give it back if you leave BT / EE).

With the current Entertainment summer offer, however, you’ll be paying £15/month for 24 months. So looking at the price alone, you do get a slight discount – but it’s not a huge one. 

But remember – you’re also signing up for BT or EE’s broadband service, which may not necessarily be the cheapest or the best in your particular situation/address.

Furthermore – you’re signing up for 24 months. I’m not a big fan of long TV contracts, and you lose the flexibility that cord cutting normally gives you, when you sign up for a Netflix/NOW package for 24 months.

However, if you were going to sign up for BT / EE broadband anyway – and you know you’ll definitely want a TV package for 24 months – then you might as well save some money, at which point this deal makes more sense.

Taking a look at the Big Entertainment bundle, which also adds Sky Cinema (via NOW TV) – you can currently get a bundle of Sky Cinema and Sky Entertainment directly from NOW, for £13.99/month, with a minimum term of 6 months.

If you add Netflix to that (at £4.99/m), and Discovery+ Basic (£3.99/m), we reach £22.97/month. Therefore, EE TV’s Big Entertainment bundle, at £25/month, only makes sense if you really want the 4K Pro Box or the Apple TV 4K Box, which is sort of costing you £2/month (that’s the extra on top of getting the streaming services directly).

Just keep in mind that you’re not “buying” the box from EE – if you leave after 24 months, you’ll have to return it.

Is The EE Sport Bundle Discount Worth It?

The Sports bundle is even harder to compare – since every pay-TV service offers it at different price points and with constantly changing deals.

The standalone Discovery+ Premium streaming subscription, which includes TNT Sports and Eurosport, costs £30.99/month.

So at £16/month for 24 months, the EE Sport Bundle is, of course, a lot better (and you also get the EE TV Pro or the Apple TV box). But you have to sign up for 24 months.

It’s also a good price when compared to TNT Sports’ price on Sky Stream – where it’s currently priced at £28/month. 

Also, Virgin Media removed TNT Sports from its traditional TV bundles – so it now costs extra for new Virgin Media subscribers.

• EE TV Offers For New Customers
• EE TV Offers For Existing Customers
• BT Broadband Offers