Third of TWC's 100 NYC HD Channels Come at a Premium

Time Warner Cable said it reached the century mark this month in providing HD channels in the nation's top market, New York City (DMA No. 1)—and indicates than more than a third of them will come at premium prices.

TWC said it's now providing two-thirds of its 100 high-def channels in its standard HD package for one price—effective earlier this month for the market's five boroughs—while its remaining 35 HD channels are being configured for various premium-channel options for variable monthly fees, according to its Web site. (The majority of its nearly three-dozen premium venues largely consist of HBO, Showtime and similar movie-channel offerings).

TWC has been engaged in hand-to-hand combat (digitally speaking) with Verizon's FiOS service, which also is ramping up in NYC and other DMAs. Verizon boasts of slightly more than 100 HD channels in many of its markets, but the former telco's fiber-optic option is not yet widely available.

On the other end of the HD availability spectrum, Comcast has only about 40 HD channels in most of its local systems, although it markets its product as "HD choices" (mostly VOD and PPV) over "HD channels." Comcast is the largest TV service provider in the United States.