On Monday, members of the broadcasting community met at BAFTA for the Digital Television Group's Annual Industry Summit. After a keynote speech from DTI Minister of State Margaret Hodge, public service broadcasters, retailers and manufacturers united in their call for capacity to be set aside for high definition TV services on the Freeview platform.
They challenged the UK Government to intervene in Ofcom's plans to auction the radio spectrum that would be required to put HD on the Freeview platform. Despite a denial from Hodge, Ofcom's plans have been criticised by those who believe the Government wants to generate revenues from the spectrum auction.
David Youlton, the DTG Chairman, led the group in a call to arms, saying: "The spectrum belongs to the citizens of this country and this is such an important public services issue that our elected representatives, not Ofcom, should be responsible for making such a far-reaching decision on our behalf."
Steve Dowdle, Sony UK's managing director said that there is a risk Ofcom is not taking into account consumer demand. He backed this up with figures produced by GfK which estimate that 36 million HD ready televisions will be sold by 2012.
This was backed up by John Clare, CEO of DSG, who said that consumers expected HD on Freeview.
Andy Duncan, CEO of Channel 4, suggested that Ofcom's spectrum consultation topic needs to be redefined. Warning that Channel 4 did not have the resources to participate in an open auction for spectrum, he cautioned against the creation of a society made up of the HD 'haves' and 'have nots'.
"We've never allowed a two-tier system to develop before and we must not let it happen now," said Tim Davie, Director of Marketing, Communications and Audiences, at the BBC.
He also added that there would be "recriminations" if the British public who are helping to pay for the 2012 Olympics are not able to watch the games in HD on Freeview, when people in other countries will be able to do so.
The HD For All campaign continues.
five years away is an awfully long time. No one even knew what an HDMI connector was five years ago, technology won't stand still waiting for the "free/public" broadcast medium to catch up half a decade later,. Who knows what will be the vogue then, when freeview plays catch-up? 1080P? SkyHD4K? I fear that freeview will be almost forgotten by 2012, when all the pay systems are pushing HDTV now.
If I were the freeview consortium, I'd be itching to not renew a contract with a bunch of the lesser known channels on freeview, just to free up the bandwidth for one BBC HD freeview channel - that would really get people interested in the technology.