What is blue from Swisscom?
Swisscom is rebranding many of its home entertainment offers. Swisscom TV is being rebranded as blue TV. The Teleclub pay TV service is being rebranded to blue+. Kitag, a cinema chain and Swisscom subsidiary, is being rebranded to blue Cinema.
What is changing?
As part of the rebranding, Swisscom is launching streaming services which you can subscribe to without having to get a Swisscom Internet plan or TV plan. Teleclub, which up until now required an Internet or TV plan to access, is now available with streaming subscriptions.
The new streaming services let you stream directly to a smartphone or tablet. Billing is done by credit card.
Which streaming subscriptions are available from Swisscom blue?
Swisscom offers these streaming services:
- Video on demand: Individual sports broadcasts can be streamed on a pay-per-view basis.
- blue Sport costs 29.90 francs per month and has a large selection of sports broadcasts. Broadcasts can only be streamed live, as time shifting is not available.
- blue Max costs 19.90 francs per month and has 11 channels dedicated to series and movies. Shows can be streamed live as with TV. You can also watch individual videos on demand.
- blue Doku costs 9.90 francs per month and includes popular international documentary channels including Animal Planet, the Discovery Channel, Geo Television and National Geographic. Broadcasts can only be streamed live, as time shifting is not available.
- blue Cinéplay costs 14.90 francs per month and includes numerous French-language content, including productions from Canal+ and HBO. More than 200 series are available on blue Cinéplay.
Important: A minimum subscription term of 6 months applies to the blue Max, blue Doku and blue Sport offers. That means you have to subscribe and pay for at least half a year.
What does blue TV offer?
Swisscom TV is being rebranded to blue TV.
Aside from the rebranding, the change does not affect existing subscribers who watch Swisscom TV via a Swisscom TV-Box.
But Swisscom is now offering blue TV as a stand-alone service which you can subscribe to independently of other Swisscom plans. You can stream Blue TV on your smartphone or tablet.
There are two versions of blue TV:
- blue TV Air Free is free but has advertisements. It has 250 channels, 150 of which have HD picture.
- blue TV costs 10 francs per month. It has 250 channels, 100 of which have HD picture. It includes 30-hour time shifting and a 60-hour TV recorder.
Verdict by telecom expert Ralf Beyeler
The Swisscom blue streaming subscriptions are relatively expensive when compared to competing subscriptions from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+.
The 6-month minimum subscription period is not customer friendly. Another disadvantage is that the blue Doku and blue Sport subscriptions do not have time shifting. You have to watch shows as they are broadcast. Many of today’s consumers are used to being able to watch shows on their own schedules.
On the other hand, Swisscom offering streaming plans which anyone can subscribe to is a welcome development, particularly for Sports fans.
Up until now, you had to have both an Internet plan and a TV plan from Swisscom in order to watch Teleclub sports, movie and series.
With the blue streaming offers, Swisscom is making its Pay TV content available via an app – much like Netflix does. You can subscribe without having to get Swisscom TV or Internet subscriptions.
It is a shame that blue TV from Swisscom is a relatively limited product. It is apparent that Swisscom does not want to cannibalize its more comprehensive TV plans which include more channels and higher recording and time shifting capacities.
But the limitations mean that cost-conscious customers are still better off using specialized services like Teleboy or Zattoo.
More on this topic:
Interactive Swiss TV plan comparison
Video streaming comparison
