Freeview HDTV Trial A Success

The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five have completed a trial which saw HDTV broadcast over Freeview and announced that it was a success.

The four broadcasters began the trial of 450 London households in June, each of which were given a prototype HD set top box enabled to receive Freeview DTT broadcasts.

Nearly all (98%) triallists stated that it was important to have HD services on Freeview in future, with 86% of those surveyed expecting to see these services within three years.

Nine out of ten (90%) believed that the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five should be at the forefront of HD developments.

Wildlife and sport where the genres of programming which triallists believed would benefit the most from being broadcast in HDTV.

The trial was conducted under an Ofcom licence which strictly limited the number of receivers and did not allow reception of the trial stream by general members of the public (see Broadcasters Could Bring HDTV To Freeview).

Seetha Kumar, head of HD TV, BBC, said: “It’s clear even from this small trial that audiences increasingly expect us and the other major broadcasters to offer high quality HD programming on Freeview in the future.

“All triallists experienced our HD programmes first hand. Many of them liked what they saw, and wanted more of it.

“We would like to be able to provide that level of quality to Freeview viewers, alongside other platforms, in years to come.”

BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com Channel Four: 020 7396 4444 www.channel4.com Five: 020 7550 5555 www.five.tv