Online rabble-rouser and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban announced back in May that several new Comcast markets would start carrying the HDNET channel this year. Now, reports on several user forums suggest the launch is likely to happen this week in Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle. (The Chicago area reportedly started seeing rollouts earlier this month.) Although I’ve seen no official word of the launch date on either the Comcast or HDNET site, the number of details leaking out across the web suggest this rumor’s for real.
If you’re not familiar with HDNET, the content is primarily guy territory: MMA fights, scantily clad women, etc. However, the channel also carries some in-depth news programming, including Dan Rather Reports, and the HDNET Concert Series. In addition to the main HDNET network, there’s also HDNET Movies. No word yet on when that channel might get additional Comcast carriage.
Retransmission negotiations continue to be a major battleground for content and service providers. But when you’ve got a popular network, it seems the content provider is the one likely to win out in the end.
“In addition to the main HDNET network, there’s also HDNET Movies. No word yet on when that channel might get additional Comcast carriage.”
HDNET Movies actually has quite a nice library, for a semi-premium channel.
I’ve got no use for HDNET. (Although I did TiVo them back when they were running a nice clean feed of Arrested Development in 1080 a year ago. Now Arrested Development is stuck on IFCHD, and I loathe IFCHD. The quality is lousy, and they muck up the feed with most distracting promos of any semi-premium channel I’ve ever seen.)
When I lived under the Comcast umbrella in Reading, Pennsylvania, we had HDNet in the upper 800’s. There was a good 100 or 101 HD channels scattered around the dial. HDNet Movies, however was not carried on the system (and I did not hear rumblings of it on broadbandreports either).
Now I moved out of their territory and have HDNet movies with DirecTV. Sadly, I lost a lot of good HD with DirecTV. No E!, Style, We, ID HD, History International HD, G4 HD, Fuse HD, GMC HD, and much more.
Go Comcast, wish you offered some kind of HD wireless service using cell phone towers, or IPTV over BYA(Bring Your own Access). Hey, I don’t draw the system boarders.
This is great, I really enjoyed HDNet Smallville reruns and their concerts when I had At&T U verse when we were living in Texas. We now live in Florida and have comcast, but no HDNet. I hope it is about to circulate to my area soon, zip code 33027. It is now May of 2011.