DirecTV recently announced that it has agreements in place for carriage of several additional HD channels, with plans to have the count up to 100 by year's end.
The latest additions include four Discovery HD channels, CNBC and Chiller in HD, five Starz HD streams and also offerings from The History Channel and A&E.
"Earlier this year, we called 2007 the 'Year of HD,' and we're going to deliver on our commitment to offer more HD channels than any other multichannel provider," said Derek Chang, DirecTV Inc.'s executive vice president for strategy and development. "In addition to the networks we've signed to date, we will continue to add more HD programming to our launch list between now and year-end. Demand for HD continues to grow, and with the dramatic expansion of our capacity this summer and the nationwide reach of our service, we are uniquely positioned to lead the industry in the carriage and delivery of HD programming."
The satellite programming distribution service said that their number of HD customers had doubled during the past year. DirecTV says that it will have capacity for 100 HD channels by year's end. Launch of a new satellite is scheduled for this summer and this will provide capacity for local high-definition channels in up to 75 markets. Another satellite is being readied for launch in early 2008. This will expand the DirecTV HD capacity to 1,500 local HD channels and 150 national HD services.
