Germany: Sky Grows HD Menu

The DBS service Sky Deutschland said this week that plans are underway to add at least four channels to its HD tier for German subscribers during the next 12 months.

Sky Deutschland, a subsidiary of BSkyB, which is based in Great Britain, news.sky.com/skynews/ has been offering a handful of channels in its HD service, including: Discovery HD; History HD; National Geographic HD; Sky Cinema HD; Disney CineMagic HD; Sky Sport HD; and Eurosport HD.

Sky reported that following its inking of a licensing deal with SES Astra--the satellite company that will deliver the new channels-- Sky plans to ramp up the four additional HD venues for Germany at various times through 2010.

SES Astra said that the initiative by Sky's German property indicated an increasing demand for a wider array of HD programming, especially as an increasing supply of movies and HD television content becomes more readily available.