Time Warner Cable customers nationwide no longer will have to subscribe to a separate HD tier for $5-10 a month to get ESPN HD and ESPN2 HD under terms of the new contract between ESPN parent Disney and Time Warner. The HD tier Time Warner offers will now feature four channels: HDNet, HDNet Movies, MOJO HD and Universal HD. Multichannel News has the full story.
This is great news for consumers. I've never been a fan of the HD tier because in my opinion it adds one more layer of confusion to the HD buying process. Many customers don't realize they need a special HD set-top box from their cable or satellite provider to watch actual HD programming on their new HDTVs, and even fewer know that they need to subscribe to a separate tier of service to get all of the HD channels their cable company offers. My personal wish would be for HD tiers to be eliminated altogether -- and if Comcast can live without them, so can the rest of the cable industry.
However, if I'm running HDNet, MOJO or Universal, I'm not very happy with the transfer of ESPN HD and ESPN2 HD to the basic HD package. I haven't seen any specific research addressing this issue, but my guess is that a large percentage of people who subscribe to the $5-10 HD tier from Time Warner do so because that's the only way to get ESPN HD. With that element removed from the equation, I'm betting that many consumers will no longer subscribe to the HD tier since HDNet, MOJO and Universal are unfamiliar brands to consumers just becoming acquainted with high-def.
Hopefully this move by Time Warner will be the first step towards eliminating the HD tiers entirely.
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4 comments:
Do you know when Time Warner will put all the HBO flavors in HD?
This way west coast folks can watch Sopranos and Entourage in HD at 6pm on a Sunday instead of 9pm on a Sunday.
They've experimented with that concept in a couple of markets like El Paso but it hasn't gotten very far. Since cable bandwidth is scarce, they'd have to choose between offering a unique HD channel like ESPN2 HD or MHD versus adding a second HBO HD channel.
Just can't wait until 9:00 to get your Sopranos fix, huh??
When will this take effect?
When will Espn 2 HD be on Time Warner?
Thanks
Time Warner currently offers ESPN2 HD in most -- but not all -- of its markets. And in some markets, like San Diego where I live, they offer ESPN2 HD in parts of their territory but not all of it. My guess is that they'll offer it everywhere within the next month or two.
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