If you’re an iPhone or Android user you’re pretty well catered for in the apps department, especially when it comes to watching premium TV and sports on the move.
Virgin Media, Sky and BT all have apps that let you watch at least some of their pay channels on a mobile or tablet and set recordings when away from home.
But Microsoft’s meagre marketshare of circa 10% means the big pay TV firms have decided it’s just not worth the cash, time and resources to build apps for a subset of that user base.
The result is a lot of users who are understandably frustrated at paying the same for their TV packages as their iOS and Android pals but are unable to access the full range of services.
But can BT continue to cold-shoulder the platform, however justified it thinks that stance is, given its impending purchase of EE?
The network sells five different Windows handsets from Microsoft’s Lumia brand, four of which come with a two-year contract.
Imagine a customer goes into an EE store and is trying to decide between a Windows, iPhone or Android handset and asks about the availability of BT Sport on their new purchase.
How are the store staff supposed to explain that a handset BT is happy to sell them is too unpopular to bother developing an app for?
It’s one thing to exclude a whole platform when you’re just a content provider and understandably want to limit the TV platform’s cost base, but when you’re selling handsets too you have to consider a different set of issues, including not denting the appeal of your wider offering.
If BT were smart, it’d move quickly to support Windows Phone.
Doing so would not only boost the appeal of the handsets it’ll soon be selling but could also be a deciding factor for pay TV customers when choosing a provider.
And BT recently promised investors it’ll boost TV sign-ups which are currently hovering at around 10,000 per month.
Being able to give all users access to the full service would be a good place to start, especially if it wants to cross sell BT TV and BT Sport to EE customers.