BBC Trust Approves HDTV Channel Launch

The BBC Trust has approved proposals to launch a high definition TV channel, concluding it was essential HDTV was made universally available.

The channel will air on cable and satellite as soon as possible and on Freesat, the BBC’s free-to-view digital satellite service (see Freesat Gets BBC Trust Approval), when it is launched.

But proposals for the Freeview service were put on hold because viewers might have been required to buy two new set-top boxes to receive the channel.

“We believe there is currently too great a risk of confusing customers due to the need for upgrades,” said BBC Trustee Diane Coyle.

Freeview users would have needed to buy a new set-top box to receive an interim four-hour overnight service that had been suggested.

Because of proposed changes in the way Freeview is broadcast, however, they would have had to upgrade their equipment again when the full, nine-hour service became available.

The “mixed genre” HD channel will show programmes from across all of the BBC’s stations and will not be a replication of BBC One.

A trial version is already running on satellite and cable, showing such programmes as Bleak House and Silent Witness.

Recently, Ofcom’s chief executive, Ed Richards, said free high definition broadcasts on the Freeview platform could be available as early as the end of 2009, much earlier than predicted.

At the Ofcom Annual Lecture, held by the Westminster Media Forum, Richards said that new technology could allow the Freeview platform to carry substantial amounts of HD programming (see HD For Freeview Sooner Than Planned).

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