The three Dutch national public channels Nederland 1, 2 and 3 will start to broadcast in HD during the second quarter of 2009. About 15% of all prime time content will be native HD, the remainder will be upscaled to HD, according to a spokesperson during the HD Day in Hilversum.
Negotiations are under way with all major distributing platforms including cablers UPC and Ziggo. For the moment, the Digitenne digital terrestrial platform is not able to broadcast HD channels. The two IPTV providers KPN and Tele2 are also not yet equipped to stream HD broadcasts.
Commercial broadcaster RTL wants to launch all its four Dutch language channels in simulcast, but for the time being there is no timetable for the introduction of HD broadcasts. SBS Broadcasting “has no concrete plans to introduce HD.”