Digital Home Thoughts: HDTV--The Clincher in War Between Cable and Phone?

"High-definition television could tip the balance between phone companies and cable operators as they compete for TV dollars. After years of hype, HDTV, with its enhanced picture quality and superior sound, is finally becoming a reality. Consumers are starting to buy new HDTV sets in droves. Providing those people with more than one channel of HDTV programming could become a key selling point for the phone and cable providers battling to sign up TV subscribers. "There's been a lot of talk about integrating all kinds of interactive features into TV," said Rick Thompson, a senior analyst at Heavy Reading, an industry analyst group based in New York City. "But in the short term, the biggest differentiator will be who has the best content package, and part of that will be how much HDTV you have.""

Hmm, the new item isn't really telling us anything new except reiterating the fact that the one (cable companies vs phone companies) that ends up providing better content is the one that will end up gaining more of a market share. What the piece does tell us is some statistics about HDTV purchases by consumers, something that is turning out to be quite significant given how cheap HDTVs are now. I have always used cable and still do (quite happy with the number of HDTV channels on cable) but I agree with the news item that consumers would be interested in more that one HDTV channel at any given time. It will be interesting to see how cable companies will invest their money to increase the bandwidth they support over time, something the phone companies are working on already.