UPC Nederland will expand the line-up of its HD and SD channels on September 1. The operator is the first major cabler to distribute BBC One HD in the country. UPC already distributes the UK version of BBC HD.
The total number of HD channels will grow to 27 with the addition of Animal Planet HD and FoxLife HD.
The cabler also includes CBBC and CBeebies, so UPC now carries all domestic BBC channels with the exception of BBC News 24. However, UPC carries BBC World News, until now the only international BBC channel available on the network. This will change as UPC also plans to add BBC Entertainment.
FoxLife HD will sit alongside the SD version of the channel. The cabler will also include the new 24 Kitchen, a Dutch cooking channel from Fox Channels Benelux. A new channel from RTL will be RTL Crime.
From September 1, UPC will also carry all Dutch regional pubic broadcasters on the entire network by adding RTV Noord, RTV Drenthe, RTV Oost, RTV West and Omroep Zeeland. The move comes at the time that the country’s largest cabler, Ziggo, has decided to bring down the number of regional broadcasters by restricting distribution of each of the regional channels to its service area rather than across the whole footprint.
Three channels will replace others: MTV Music 24 takes the place of TMF NL, which stops broadcasting and VH1 Classic replaces VH1. And from Discovery Networks, UPC will replace Discovery Travel & Living with Investigation Discovery.
