Media Forum: Should media plan for HDTV?(High definition television)

Is HDTV ready to be on the agenda at advertisers and agencies?

The UK's high-definition television era has begun at long last.

On 22 May, the Sky Digital platform began carrying HD-quality pictures across a total of eight channels and BSkyB started installing the new boxes - 2,500 in the first day alone, according to some sources.

There are 40,000 customers and counting on the waiting list too. Cable, which has been testing its own version of the technology since the tail-end of last year, will soon be up to speed too. We're on our way.

And not before time, some say. We have often been ahead of the game when it comes to new media technologies but on the HDTV front, the US, for example, has been miles ahead. Over there, the first HDTV broadcasts were made by CBS as far back as 1996 - and the leap to HDTV has been made hand in hand with the leap to digital. Analogue switch-off takes place in February 2009 in the US.

Over here, though, Freeview won't have HDTV capacity until after the UK analogue switch-off in 2012 - so in the interim it is always destined to be a minority pursuit. And anyway, who wants to watch the news in high definition? It's pointless over-elaboration. A white elephant in the making if ever there was one.

But then the critics ruined their own arguments somewhat by adding with glee that demand for HDTV boxes has been running ahead of supply - and that customers who'd been looking forward to an HDTV World Cup were likely to be disappointed.