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_Euro1080 HDTV Channel starts January 1st 2004
22 January 2003
The
time has come to start the rollout of digital high-definition
television in Europe. Today, there are already developments towards
HDTV broadcast channels all over the world: in Asia (all Japanese TV
channels, Korean Broadcasting, CCTV China), in Australia (all channels
from July 1st 2003 on) and in the Americas (various channels in the USA
including ‘HD net’, ‘TV Azteca-Mexico’, ‘TV Globo-Brasil’). This trend
will accelerate during the next years. Already now, for the Olympics
2004 in Athens, some 10 broadcasters have requested the acquisition and
distribution of HD signals for their home market. There are convincing
reasons that Europe should follow, given the great desire to experience
high-quality entertainment, as e.g. illustrated by the incredible speed
in the acceptance of DVD and other home cinema products. The Euro1080
Channel will start on January 1st 2004 with high production-value
programmes, in HDTV format, and accompanied with best quality
surround-sound, all with European-wide coverage to gain economy of
scale.
Euro1080 will provide sports, music, events, shows, entertainment
spectacles and European films as the content that will profit most from
the quality delivery platform, and for which there is an interested
audience.
The Euro1080 Channel is a key element in the chain to bring HD into the
living room, but there are other elements with comparable importance.
In addition to content owners, media producers, production companies
and their suppliers in the broadcast equipment industry, a key role is
to be played by the Consumer Electronics industry, in order to provide
decoders and high definition TV sets.
The longer-term objective of Euro1080 is clearly to address a large
number of consumers with HD TV sets at home. But beyond this audience
we address others as well. We distinguish three different types of
audiences for the distribution platform that we are building:
electronic cinemas, homes and “small venues”, such as sports bars,
small theatres, points-of-sales, conference sites, hotel chains, etc.
Not only do we think that this will be an interesting business in
itself, but we also believe that by starting the distribution of
quality content through public places, we will reach a large audience
quickly, and as such speed up the process of acceptance and penetration
of HD devices in the homes.
Euro1080 is in conversation with a large number of players in the
television production and delivery chain to identify the remaining
pieces and complete the puzzle. On our website www.euro1080.tv you can follow our progress. |
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