Broadcasters claim UK HDTV trial a success

Most viewers want it, but only on Freeview

21 November 2006 12:35 GMT / By Stuart Miles

The BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Five are reporting the successful first trial of high definition services on digital terrestrial platform has revealed that HD ready households expect HD on Freeview in the future.

The trial, which has been running since June and included the showing of the World Cup games, set out to prove that HD broadcasts over DTT were feasible and to investigate their appeal to viewers, according to those involved was a technical success.

According to the results, the quantitative research amongst the panel homes indicated that HD ready viewers expect high definition broadcasts on Freeview in the future.

The four broadcasters have been running the trial since June 2006 to a small closed sample group of 450 selected households in the London area, under a non-operational licence from Ofcom.

Nearly all (98%) triallists stated that it was important to have HD services on Freeview (the UK DTT platform) in future, with 86% of those surveyed expecting to see these services within 3 years.

And nine out of ten (90%) believed that the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five (together the public service broadcasters – PSBs) should be at the forefront of HD developments.

When asked about which programme genres would benefit most from being broadcast in HD, wildlife and sport lead the way with scores of 9.4 and 8.9 out of 10 respectively.

Triallists also, on average, felt that there should be at least six or seven channels of HD content available on Freeview, with an ideal of 10.

Full tags

Home Cinema, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel Five