Freeview have announced that the launch of high definition TV (HDTV) services on Freeview has been brought forward to 2010 in time for the football World Cup finals in South Africa in June.
According to Ilse Howling, Freeview’s Managing Director, Freeview HD will be available in 40% of homes in Britain by June next year.
Freeview households will however need two things in order to receive the HDTV service: an HD Ready TV set of which there are about 14 million already in the UK; and a new Freeview box capable of decoding an HDTV signal. These new Freeview+HD boxes will retail for about £200.
Ms Howling believes that there is a significant appetite for Freeview HD. “Freeview HD is what people are searching for most on our website. I’m hopeful that Freeview HD will be available to 40pc of homes in Britain by the World Cup next year,” she said.
This confidence in the likely popularity of HDTV on Freeview is supported by Sky’s experience. They have invested heavily in HDTV and have 33 HD channels broadcasting on the Sky platform for Sky+HD customers. HDTV has been a major growth driver for them in the last 12 months, with over 1 million Sky TV homes now enjoying the service and over 240,000 subscribing to the HDTV service in the last 3 months alone, following a reduction in the price of the Sky+HD box to £49.
Ms Howling also revealed that plans for the roll-out of the BBC’s iPlayer on Freeview are also ahead of schedule, with expectations that iPlayer-enabled Freeview boxes will be available later this year. This comes a year earlier than the planned launch of Project Canvas, a proposed service from BT, ITV and the BBC to offer a video-on-demand and internet-enabled set-top box.
All HDTV boxes have a PVR (personal video recorder) within the box as standard and as a result the HDTV revolution will further the proliferation of PVRs which are already quietly growing in popularity. Freeview launched their PVR, (the Freeview+ box) in late 2008 and has already sold over 1.4 million – whilst approximately 5 million Sky households use PVR functionality, either through Sky+ or a Sky+HD box.