Sky News HD to launch 2010

Sky News is always looking to break new ground and to give its viewers the best possible quality.

Sky News are reporting over the next few months, they will be upgrading their studios, production facilities and news gathering operations in the UK and abroad, in preparation to launch Sky News HD sometime in 2010.

It looks like Sky News HD will be an additional channel, being broadcast alongside the existing Sky News channel 501.

Head of News, John Ryley, outlined the opportunities of HD broadcasting:

"As well as enhanced studio presentation and compelling on-air graphics, news is also about the drama of human emotion. From keynote speeches and police news conferences to picket lines and joyful crowds at ceremonial events, HD is an opportunity to bring our viewers much closer to events. In the United States, the big networks are already offering HD news of sorts. The sets, the graphics and the presenters look fantastic. In most cases, all that’s missing are HD pictures from outside the studios. Here, we plan to take an extra step, and bring you HD pictures from our news teams in the UK, and where possible from abroad.

Our move to HD follows the channel's first ever HD broadcast and online streaming of Barack Obama's Inauguration in January. It was a perfect event to showcase HD. Of course coverage isn't always on this grand scale, and we won't always be able to bring you this type of comprehensive HD experience. But it was a glimpse of the future, and what's possible."

Earlier today, the Sky+HD Team posted the following news in our forums:

We hope you’re enjoying your Sky+HD service. As you know, we’re always looking at ways we can add to the choice of HD content and do something new. We’re delighted to tell you today that we’ll be doing both next year by launching Sky News HD, the first UK HD news channel in Spring 2010.

We tried out news in HD for the very first time in January, when Sky News covered Barack Obama’s inauguration. Comments from Sky customers on the forums helped to convince us that there was real potential and demand for new in HD and spurred us on to looking at the possibility of launching a fully-fledged Sky News HD channel. Now that we’ve decided to do just that, we need to upgrade our news studios and equipment, here and overseas – quite a job for a broadcast news organisation.

This week, we’ve also upped the ante on arts, moving just this Monday to two dedicated simulcast HD channels for Sky Arts 1 and Sky Arts 2. This means that, today, Sky+HD customers can enjoy content from films, sport, documentaries, entertainment and arts across 33 channels.
As always, thanks for your comments and feedback – it’s invaluable to us.

Thanks

The Sky+HD Team

You can read more here - Sky News HD - coming next Spring