I wouldn't quite say that Verizon is clueless because they are doing tons of things the right way compared to nearly all cable companies. Also these channels could become much better in say a year or so. Sometimes startup channels need some paying subscribers along with a bit of time until content can improve. Remember that in many cases the channels must come before the content. I remember many people saying that ESPN HD was a waste with so little content airing in HD at first. I also remember even more people saying the same about ESPN2 HD when it first launched. Now both ESPN channels have amazing amounts of live and studio content available in HD.
I believe many of the current HD channels available will get much better over the years with regards to increasing the amount of HD content. When the big rush started with HD channels it became critical for many companies to snatch up those HD placeholders among the various providers or they may never have their HD channels carried. Remember again that most customers (cable customers) for at least the next few years may only have access to at most 50 HD channels. Well if your a cable network I sure as heck want my channel as one of those 50 even if I don't have any HD content quite yet. What good does it do waiting 3 years until you have enough HD content if 50+ percent of cable customers won't see your channel for five years because of bandwidth issues.
Sorry for such a long post but I'm just giving another angle to this whole issue which also can justify to an extent why I believe HD content will increase on many of our existing HD channels.
Fine, maybe "clueless" isn't the right word. Without too lengthy a response, I will just say they made huge errors in judgment with the 30Mbps cap in the original markets that leads to the limit of 1 HD VOD at a time in a single household and the dipping into ones Internet when VOD bandwidth is used. Their Actiontec modem requirement for guide and VOD which can be avoided by going right to the ONT. In my case they absolutely refused to wire it to the ONT, I have seen first hand when they run it to the ONT without the Actiontec. It can and does work. Their customer service... call three times, get three answers..... OK... I have touched the tip of the iceberg so I will leave it.
About these .TV channels. They are more than just new HD nationals. They are Verizon specifically created HD channels. While Verizon doesn't directly own them, they have some sort of partnership setup with this company to exclusively carry them. Shutting out the other providers, even in non-FIOS markets will severly limit the chance for any one channel to do too well.
My outlook on it is that we are missing a ton of HD channels by Viacom, Rainbow, Comcast, etc, that I am sure many customers would rather have. It isn't about whether existing HD nationals have a lot of HD. Like you said, it will come. But it will come on the HD nationals, not the .TV nationals. Can anybody out there honestly say they'd rather get Comedy.TV than Comedy Central HD? Or ES.TV rather than E! HD? I don't know about the rest of you but like I said, I would rather have AMC HD than all these right now. I just feel like they are focusing their efforts in the wrong area by bringing us the .TV channels. If we had all other HD nationals, fine, but we don't. So there shouldn't be this stuff added.
My crystal ball says the .TV channels, all six of them, will not make it two years unless they are severely propped up by Verizon beyond their original contract terms (or Verizon's customers rather). They have a contract with Verizon and they will go back and say, "hey, we need more money or we are going to go bankrupt, our channels cannot sustain." Kind of like an ES.TV, Entertainment bailout between Verizon and the company that is offering up this stuff.
I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. If I can turn on my TV and see something good on .TV every freak chance I flip to one of them, good. I'd rather have good entertainmant than bad existing rather I am watching it routinely than not. I just see these things going the way of Voom. Boom!
