HD Beyond The Majors
While most of the HD focus centers on markets such as the United Kingdom, France and Germany, other markets will also see HD content increase. The CMore Group, a Nordic-based pay entertainment provider with more than 770,000 subscribers in Scandinavia, is preparing to bring the first wave of HD content to audiences in the Nordic region.
Marc-Antoine d'Halluin, CEO of the CMore Group, says the company is working in conjunction with satellite pay-TV platform Canal Digital to bring HD content beginning in September. "It is truly a fantastic experience for a viewer standpoint," d'Halluin says. "There is a huge chunk of movie lovers in the region. They are really going to enjoy that channel and they know more will come in the next couple of years."
But while the company aims to be a pioneer in bringing HD content to the Nordic region, d'Halluin admits it may be a slow process. "The take-up of HDTV in the Nordics will be slow in the beginning, because what you need is a new decoder and the appropriate TV set," d'Halluin said. "You also need the appropriate decoder box, so it is going to be slow. These boxes are more expensive than the basic one. But, the early adopters are going to be rushing to it in the way HDTV has been successful in [other regions]."
The tendency when it comes to HDTV is to talk about the future. Euro1080, a pan-European channel provider is already pumping out HD content to homes across Europe and has close to 100,000 customers. Gabriel Fehervari, the CEO of Euro1080, believes the availability of set top boxes is a key issue for HD progression in Europe. "Premiere, BSkyB and TPS have announced plans but it is not really clear when the new boxes will be there," he says.
Euro1080 is hoping to bring its HD content to more markets across Europe. The company is excited about the prospects in Turkey, Fehervari adds. "In the first stage, we will try to get into these markets because there is no HD there. ... If you take a country like Turkey, there are 18 million households there. It is also a country that is very satellite- orientated, which makes it relatively easy to penetrate. It is a lot easier than somewhere like Belgium where there are a lot of different cable companies to persuade."
Euro1080 wants to play a key role in combining with satellite pay-TV operators in terms of HD content. Fehervari believes the company's approach is complement to more mainstream HD entertainment. "A German channel like Premiere will focus on the Bundesliga (German league soccer)," Fehervari says. "We are not interested in this. We will not show local football. We will not show movies. But we will show other sports events like world championship judo or table tennis. It is not that we are showing lower level [events], but we are showing other types of sports. We focus on these sports, rock concerts, classical concerts and things that Premiere would never bring on the channel."
While more HD channels will undoubtedly provide competition for Euro1080, it is something that Fehervari is encouraging. He believes that people will be drawn to content in HD that ordinarily they will have no interest in. "In a certain way, we support each other. The phenomenon is if you have watched HD and you have enjoyed it, you will look for any HD you can receive. It is like black-and-white to color. Once you have seen color, you don't want to go back. Somebody may never watch an opera in [standard definition], but in HD they might watch it."
The future looks bright for HDTV. If all established business plans continue on successful paths, HDTV will become more mainstream, in more markets throughout the world and providing more revenue streams for content distributors, equipment manufacturers and satellite service providers. The hard work on the technology side already has begun in earnest. Now is the time for programmers to create more HD content for distribution.
Mark Holmes is senior editor of Inside Digital TV and International editor of Satellite news, both sister publications to Via Satellite magazine.
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