Quote:
Originally Posted by RichardCoulter
Indeed. I thought Virgin were aiming to get as many channels as possible onto HD, these channels do exist elsewhere and they own their own capacity, so I can't see why they aren't now in HD.
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Virgin Media and Paramount have a carriage agreement, and it needs to be changed for channels to be upgraded to HD. 5USA and 5Star are relatively old ad-supported channels whose audiences and programming were built around SD distribution. And here's the problem: advertisers rarely pay a higher rate for a commercial spot on 5USA or 5Star simply because it is broadcast in HD instead of SD. The viewer numbers remain roughly the same, meaning Paramount sees very little return on investment for the extra HD carriage fees. That carriage agreement is thus unlikely to change.