German public service broadcasters seek HD cable carriage

German public service broadcasters ARD and ZDF are seeking cable carriage for their 10 new HD channels, which will be launched on April 30 2012, broandbandtvnews.com reports.

However, the broadcasters are not prepared to pay a carriage fee for the new channels, but expect the cable operators to distribute their channels. So far, the cable operators  have not agreed with this demand.

ARD and ZDF hope to save up to €60 million ($US77million) per year by not paying operators for distribution of their channels.

Both broadcasters are closing down their analogue satellite transmission this April and will launch no less than 10 HD channels.

These are the thematic channels ZDFneo, ZDFkultur, ZDFinfo, 3sat, Phoenix, Kika, and regional broadcasters SWR, BR, NDR and WDR.

More HD versions of regional broadcasters, all part of the ARD, will start in the years to come. The plan is to have HD versions of all public channels on satellite.