Rich Fiscus
8 Jul 2007 11:06
The British 'HD for All' campaign, designed to promote hi-def TV, drew a withering blast from Sky yesterday.
Sky public affairs head Martin Le Jeune described it as a "shabby alliance between a group of public service broadcasters who should know better [and] vendors who sell expensive product". It was "genuinely silly", he told a Westminster audience.
It was insulting to compare the provision of HD programming to something as fundamental as universal healthcare, he said. HD TV is the mass-market technology that never arrives - but Sky has been offering the service for real for over a year now, and actually has some viewers.
Westminster's eForum gathered MPs, broadcasters, and regulators at Millbank yesterday to discuss the state of HD TV in the UK. The day's debate confirmed that in Britain the talking would carry on for some years to come.
At the core of the delay is the issue of spectrum. The established public service broadcasters say there isn't enough of it to go round. This view was encapsulated by Simon Pitt, "director of platforms" for ITV.
Pitt said squeezing HD programming onto the spectrum allocated was "theoretically true but practically difficult". But this is prime spectrum, and lots of people want it. Mobile TV (such as DVB-H) is another way it could be put to use; local TV is another.
Two notes of dissent put these anxieties in perspective.
Nokia multimedia VP Mark Selby reminded the audience that hi-def didn't mean good programmes.
"We can get so in love with technology, we end up polishing stones," he said.
"I remember when Toy Story came out, everyone said it would be the future of animation. Since then we've had the success of The Simpsons and SouthPark - which shows it's the overall experience that matters".
And South Park doesn't need a hi-def MPEG4 "delivery platform".
The other reality-check came from Guy Holcroft, of market research group GfK: "Today's forum is composed of people who want HD technology," he observed. "GfK haven't seen any evidence that there's widespread national demand for HD TV."
Source: The Register