Could operators be preparing to drop extra fees for HD channels, asks Julian Clover?
It is almost two years since high definition television officially made its debut in Europe. The 2006 World Cup was supposed to be the starting point of MPEG-4 receivers, though in reality few viewers actually managed the feat, and I remember driving to the local DHL dispatch centre in order to have a receiver in place for the final. Prior to this there had been MPEG-2 transmissions from Euro 1080/HD1 and the Canal Digital pay-TV platform.
As HD got underway in earnest a simple consumer proposition emerged: an additional €10, or £10 in the UK, and you received a bundle of HD channels that varied in size. The access fee would typically allow the consumer to view their existing packages in HD or at least the few channels transmitted in the new format.
So on Sky, your £10 would buy you Sky Sports, but only if you had a subscription to the channel already and so too Sky Movies. Without the subscription and the chances are you would be left with the likes of Nat Geo and Discovery.
Last month Scandinavia’s Canal Digital announced plans to repackage its HDTV service, dropping its SKr99 dedicated HD pack, instead adding its seven HD channels to the family pack. This week a similar plan came from Brussels-based Coditel. Could it be that the pricing structure is about to be reviewed as platforms look to push HD to the subscribers that are hitherto more HD empty than HD ready.
On Coditel TF1 HD, Arte HD, Luxe TV HD, I-concert and EXQI will be offered as part of the starter package; National Geographic HD and HD1 are part of the extended digital pack while Disney Cinémagic HD is part of the Disney option.
When Sky dropped its initial £10 management fee for subscribers to its Sky+ personal video recorder, up went the sales, and sales have raised several fold since.
Doing the same with HD may be more difficult as platforms will have existing contracts in place with channels that saw the new delivery format as a means to driving up falling carriage fees. Canal Digital Sweden has for example not been able to extend the all-encompassing family pack to its cable subscribers.
If HD is treated in the same way as channels that show old black and white movies, there may be greater enthusiasm from the viewers, but not necessarily from the operators that may not always be able to justify the extra bandwidth. But we know HD to be the future and for more than just the handful of HD channels available terrestrially.
