SES chief predicts HD take-off for UK

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Romain Bausch, President and CEO of SES Global, has suggested that high-definition television will take off, as more and more British viewers sample digital and pay-TV broadcasting. He told The Guardian that with the launch of HDTV "there will be a third wave of growth in the UK. I believe that we will see Astra adding more capacity to the UK market well beyond the satellite capacity set aside with the launch of new satellites." With capacity on existing UK-focused craft "practically fully booked," according to Bausch, SES plans to shift the orbital position of another satellite in its Astra fleet to meet demand from the UK market.

Bausch identified a number of factors that will help the UK government achieve analogue switch-over: BSkyB's free service, 'freesat'; HDTV, and the growing popularity of interactive content. "It will depend on successes like this free satellite TV initiative by BSkyB. It will depend on the additional services broadcasters like the BBC and ITV will have on satellite and it will depend on the timing of the roll-out of high definition TV. All of these are initiatives that will further incentivise viewers to go for satellite reception because these services will not be available terrestrially and probably won't be available on cable."