The Managing Director of the free Digital Terrestrial Television Company Freeview says they will officially launch Freeview HD next month and intend to reach half the population of the UK with Freeview HD before the World Cup in June.
“I think this is the first time that we will see HD go mass market, mainstream” Ilse Howling, Freeview MD told the Daily Telegraph.
Freeview is jointly owned by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky, and the transmitter company Arqiva, and around 18 million homes already have at least one TV set with Freeview in their home.
Wait a minute, if Sky have a share of Freeview ownership yet at the same time are offering a paid subscription service for watching channels, how is this going to affect them? I mean Sky is a shareholder in a company that will effectively be stealing its customers.
Recent research by Freeview indicated that 17 percent of Sky Plus HD customers who currently pay a monthly subscription for the Sky high definition service have said they would be willing to jump ship and switch over to Freeview.
According to Howling there isn’t a problem and the relationship with Sky is positive. “From a personal perspective, I’ve learned an enormous amount from working with them” says Howling.
“Sky+ was already around when Freeview+ launched. Freeview has been able to learn a lot from how Sky approached technical standards, their suppliers and customer service.”
So let’s see, you can now buy a Freeview High Definition set top box for about £130 and from then on you have free High Definition viewing forever. With Sky you pay in installation fee and then an ongoing monthly subscription for the privilege of watching HD channels.
Why would anyone want Sky then and why would Sky be involved with Freeview? It’s an odd relationship for sure.
It’s all about Channels I suppose. With Freeview you don’t have as many channels as you do with Sky and no premium channels like Sky Sports either. The only real benefit for Sky and the other shareholders is that more viewers will be watching their channels.
“The benefit for Sky of having its channels on Freeview is that’s bringing the Sky brand to a group of homes who might otherwise simply never have considered Sky” says Howling.
Freeview are about to launch an ambitious marketing campaign to promote Freeview HD across the country.
“I’m expecting that the amount we spend promoting HD could well be as much as Freeview’s whole budget was in previous years” she said.
