The ban was designed to protect the new smaller telecommunications companies and the small cable television networks in the United Kingdom as it was felt that BT had an unfair advantage because its pre-privatisation monopoly meant that its equipment was already installed in virtually every home and business in the country.

[3] Initial industry reaction was positive although there was some criticism that set up costs were expensive and it was noted that BT Group were entering a competitive market.

BT acquired the rights to carry 242 same-day (but not live) Premier League football matches per season in a three-year deal covering the 2007–08, 2008–09 and 2009–10 seasons in a joint bid with BSkyB on 25 May 2006, prior to BT Vision's launch.

Between August 2007 and June 2009, Setanta Sports was available through BT Vision, via DTT and a smart card, offering live Premiership and Scottish Premier League games, as well as other sporting events such as US PGA Tour Golf and Magners League Rugby.

BT Vision made a deal with American sports TV company ESPN[9] for carriage of its new channel which replaced Setanta on DTT.

[12] The price charged to customers signing up for broadband, calls and TV with BT for a two-year contract results in the organisation making a "significant loss on the service",[13][14] allowing them to undercut the price charged by Sky to its own customers.

[16] Linear channels from UKTV started streaming later in 2012, namely Watch, GOLD and Alibi, and later Good Food, Eden and Home.

On-demand content was later removed but re-added in mid 2018 following the signing of a new deal with Eurosport's current owners Discovery.

This new service will allow customers to access BT Vision's on demand content, YouView's EPG technologies such as 'scrollback', and Now TV.

[21] This meant that the Vision+ box would continue to be distributed for the purpose of Sky Sports and the extra linear channels, as long until these features would be finally available on BT YouView.

[24] At the time of the rebrand, BT was also preparing to launch its BT Sport network, after the company had acquired a share of the rights to Premier League football television coverage for the 2013–14 to 2015–16 seasons[25][26] and an exclusive rights deal for the broadcast of Premiership Rugby from the 2013–14 season.

[35] In 2022, BT TV kicked off the transition of going fully IPTV with its aerial-based Freeview channels starting to be offered via broadband, which is called "Internet Mode" on the new set-top boxes.

All channels are offered to the viewer via IPTV with the relevant subscription from EE TV: The very first BT Vision PVR (personal video recorder) in 2007, dubbed the "V Box" and combining IPTV and DTT, with a 160GB hard disk was grey and was initially made by Philips.

[44] The original silver Vision+ boxes were of no use as of 30 June 2014; all customers received a free upgrade to YouView, worth £199, if they recontracted for 18 months.

[45] BT released a Humax set top box (DTR-T1000) in late 2012 offering Freeview HD services, linear VOD HD channels through BT Infinity, and on-demand boxsets, catchup TV and other new features as part of the newly launched YouView service.