Sky will demonstrate its 3D broadcasts at a handful of UK pubs this Sunday.
Perhaps the biggest news for UK viewers today is Sky’s launch of a dedicated 3D channel this April – Europe’s first, the company claims. The technology will even be demonstrated this Sunday, January 31st, in selected pubs in London, Manchester, Cardiff, and Edinburgh (and Dublin). But Sky is not announcing the names of the pubs involved for fear of overcrowding – this is probably sensible, but if you just have to be there, you’d better tune into the grapevine over the next couple of days.
But that’s not all Sky announced today. The broadcaster’s interim results for the second half of 2009 – which show welcome growth, by the way – also indicate plans to phase out older non-HD Sky set-top boxes. This accompanies figures showing that over 2m UK households now subscribe to Sky+HD – a massive 1.3m of which signed up within the last year alone.
Sky’s growing popularity comes as no surprise. After all, research has shown that over half of UK households now have an HDTV, but that the vast majority fail to use them to watch HD content. This situation is sure to change over time – and with Sky offering by far the widest selection of HD content (37 channels and counting), it certainly represents an attractive package. In fact, Sky has now said that all new customers from January 28, 2010, will receive a Sky+HD box – and that they’ll receive this free if they subscribe to the HD channel pack for an additional 10 GBP per month.