tnt sports used to tellivise nearly all ALF games live as of 2 weeks ago only about 60% of games. the other 40% are now only available on discovery+ whilst i have a basic discovery+ supscription i am unable to watch unless i upgrade to premium fot £39 i am denied access. this is a scam! why should i pay again for content that was available with my TNT sports on VM untill two week ago?
[Mod - title edited for clarity]
The world has changed and streaming is increasingly the main means of distributing content. Aggregators like VM (not to mention Sky and EE TV) are very important in both hosting the apps like discovery+ and broadcasting linear channels like TNT Sports (with six red button channels) to increase viewership. Who the heck wants to watch sports events on mobile devices if they can get it on a TV.
What you have to bear in mind is that content owners will always favour customers that "buy direct" from them. Sky, BT & Warner have all behaved in the same way at various times by making the direct subscription "all inclusive" & not offering everything via third party wholesale outlets.
Virgin Media is a TV platform who provide access to TNT Sports channels. The content of what TNT broadcast is not decided by VM but by TNT/Warner Bros Discovery.
Much of the content which doesn't make TNT Sports 4 linear channels and is promoted on-screen as being on Discovery+, is available on TNT Sports 5-9 red-button streaming options.
Otherwise you will need to contact TNT Sports to query this.
Oh thanks ill try the red button next week for sure
One underlying issue that does cause "channel congestion" is that Warner Bros Discovery (TNT's parent company) used to operate 6 linear broadcast channels in the UK - 4 x TNT plus 2 x Eurosport.
They have combined their sports broadcasting in the UK under the TNT brand and closed the Eurosport channels. They didn't increase the number of TNT channels, instead made the red-button streams on VM HD-capable. Many TV packages included Eurosport as standard, customers on those packages found themselves choosing between losing Eurosport or paying for TNT on a premium basis.... there was a very busy thread on Sky's forum discussing this, with many users rather unhappy at the pricing changes.
Most of the time TNT seem to do a reasonable job of keeping the high-profile events on linear, but clearly 6 into 4 doesn't go, without there being some casualties on busy sporting days. The final weekend of the Premiership Rugby season was an example, when only one live game was on linear compared with 2 in previous seasons.
