Both Fox News and MSNBC will go high definition next year. For the HDTV owner, cable news has been one of the corners of the TV world that has gone into the HD universe kicking and screaming.
Cable news operations, most of which have been on the decline for years (with the notable exception of News Corp’s Fox News), have resisted going high definition since the technology’s inception. The costs of adding high definition to a 24-hour channel is staggering, especially for cable news which runs smaller profit margins than traditional network programming. The costs include issuing high definition, portable cameras, upgrading satellite trucks around the world, and airbrushing countless anchors and talking heads. Airbrushing is a key (and more expensive) technique in makeup for HDTV on-air talents, as facial imperfections are much more visible with all the extra pixels.
Fox Business, as covered previously on this blog, was the first channel to launch in high definition, though only DirecTV is currently broadcasting the HD version of the feed. Fox News is headquartered in the same building as Fox Business, and the two operations share many resources. News Corp intentionally decided to launch Fox Business in HD first, to amortize out costs and ensure a significant reduction in resources needed to train staff and adjust to the switch to HDTV.
MSNBC however was hoping that they could beat Fox to the punch on HD. The network which touts “fastest growing” numbers, actually is the smallest of the cable news networks. MSNBC had placed its best on drawing away viewership from CNN and Fox News by going HD first. In fact, many of MSNBC’s filler documentaries (which are taking up a large portion of prime time programming), are already taped and flagged as HD.
It’s not clear when in 2008 Fox and MSNBC will launch HD, nor is it clear if this will spread to the rest of NBC news, including network NBC News and CNBC.
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Uh, dude – CNBC-HD was up and running before Fox Biz News.
CNBC-HD isn’t really HD though (though, I do thank you for pointing it out… I should have skewered them in the article itself). They are using 480 cameras and bordering/letterboxing it with stock tickers and displays.
I hardly consider that going HD… anyone can letterbox 480i/p video… it takes actual money, time and effort to go true HD.
That’s like saying that TNT HD is true HD. It isn’t… it’s 480p video at 4:3… which makes it EDTV.
I for one refuse to call something HD that isn’t truly HD. If you think TNT and CNBC have gone HD, you might as well declare Nintendo Wii’s 480p to be HD as well.
I think CNN is HD.
wikipedia entry for cnn_hd says they run 1080i
TNT and TBS are now both truly HD. MTV HD channels are the ones who are doing EDTV and calling it HDTV
Yeah CNNHD is 1080i. Not everything is in HD but their election coverage looks incredible. The widescreen leaves a lot more real estate for election stats, etc. too. But it’s not stretched..it’s full 16×9 aspect ratio.
Any update re FOX news debut in HiDef on Direct TV ?
not all of CNN is HD either, some of it is 480i with pillar box info, but it is enough to draw a devout fox news man like me away. none of it really matters anyway. at best, 1 or 2 small cable markets will get it first. lord only knows how long Dish Network will take to carry it. we still don’t have fox business HD and dish network gave us 12 new HD channels this month, they took all the VOOM channels away. now we all have the same HD channels that directv had over a year ago. the point is , it takes forever for the industry to market research all of this HD stuff, and only after they have figured out the most profitable method to distrubute HD content to the consumer, only then is it delivered to the mass.
MSNBC is not truly HD???? Just the right side of the screen which shows data?????
It should not be refered to as HD+ as they do. It should be referred to as HD-