Another day, another streaming service is increasing prices – and this time, it’s Discovery+ Premium, the platform that includes TNT Sports (the successor to BT Sport).
TNT Sports, a key player in the sports streaming arena, offers an extensive range of sporting events, including prestigious football tournaments like the UEFA Champions League and Premier League, as well as other popular sports such as Premiership Rugby, boxing, UFC, and MotoGP.
In a move that mirrors the industry’s ongoing trend of adjusting subscription costs, Discovery+ has revised the pricing of its top-tier offering, which includes sports along with Discovery+’s lifestyle programming.
Effective this week, the price of the Premium Tier has risen from £29.99 to £30.99/month (see full details below).
This change impacts viewers who subscribe to Discovery+ directly or through Amazon’s Prime Video Channels, but not those who access TNT Sports via pay-TV providers like Sky, Virgin Media, and EE TV, where the pricing structure is different.
The Emergence of TNT Sports
TNT Sports, previously known as BT Sport, emerged from a merger between BT Sport and Eurosport, a well-established sports TV network that is now owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.
This transition marked a significant reshuffle in the broadcasting arena, with TNT Sports inheriting and expanding upon BT Sport’s previous sports coverage.
TNT Sports (now with Eurosport) holds the rights for a long list of sporting events – from the thrill of the UEFA Champions League and Premier League matches to the excitement of Premiership Rugby and Champions Cup.
One of the channel’s recent achievements is securing the rights to broadcast 52 live Premier League matches each season, from 2025.
This includes the exclusive rights to Saturday 12:30 pm games and selected midweek matches.
By acquiring these rights, TNT Sports positioned itself as a significant broadcaster of Premier League football alongside established player Sky Sports, with Amazon’s Prime Video exiting the Premier League arena.
Discovery+: The Home Of TNT Sports
Discovery+ originally entered the market primarily as a provider of lifestyle, reality, and documentary content, with Eurosport available on its more expensive tier.
It serves as a hub for a variety of on-demand lifestyle, nature and factual programs from Discovery’s extensive network, including popular channels like Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, TLC, and more.
Some of the Freeview-based content is available on-demand for free on Discovery+, while most of the content is only available through one of the paid tiers.
When TNT Sports launched, a new tier emerged on Discovery+, the Premium tier – which includes Discovery+’s lifestyle programming, along with Eurosport – and TNT Sports.
TNT Sports Tier Gets More Expensive
A few years ago, BT Sport launched the ‘BT Sport Monthly Pass’ option, which let viewer subscribe directly and watch BT Sport via an app, instead of having to subscribe to a pay-TV company like Sky.
At launch, the Monthly Pass cost £25/month, and in 2023, the price went up to £29.99/month.
This week, its new incarnation – Discovery+ Premium (with TNT Sports) – got its own first price increase – from £29.99/month to £30.99/month.
New subscribers are immediately subject to the new price.
As for current subscribers, Warner Bros. Discovery has confirmed to us that they will receive a 30-day notice about the price change. The change will be applied from their next renewal date, beginning February 15, 2024 onwards.
This increase is indicative of the growing expenses associated with broadcasting premium sports content but is also part of an ongoing trend of streaming price increases – which includes Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+ and others.
Late last year, Discovery+ also revamped its other tiers, with new names and a slight change in the pricing method.
Therefore, after this week’s price increase, Discovery+ now operates three distinct subscription tiers:
Basic Tier (previously known as ‘Entertainment’): Focused on non-sport content, it caters to a general audience looking for lifestyle, factual and reality programming. This tier costs £3.99/month or £39.99/year
Standard Tier (previously ‘Entertainment & Sports Tier’): This mid-level tier introduces sports content from Eurosport, alongside the entertainment offerings. This tier costs £6.99/month (the annual option was recently discontinued).
Premium Tier: This tier adds TNT Sports to the mix, along with Eurosport and the entertainment content from the other tiers. Its new price is £30.99/month.
Discovery+ and TNT Sports are available either as an add-on to the pay-TV subscriptions from Sky, BT / EE and Virgin Media – or as a standalone streaming subscription to Discovery+.
Other than the direct subscription, Discovery+ is also available as part of Amazon’s Prime Video Channels – where the billing is done by Amazon, and you can stream the content on Amazon’s Prime Video app, instead of the Discovery+ app.
The Premium tier’s price has already gone up on the Prime Video version of Discovery+ as well.
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