OK, forget about the angst... it will curious to see the official "reason" why the channels got called off at the 11th hour...
From either the conventional "technical issues" or "because it's charlie" to more devious ones like the "Direct/NDS/Confricker Conspiracy Theory" which goes something like this, Direct was upset with the leaps that e* is making on the HD front, that NDS unleashed the confricker virus, which gave them access to e*'s internal messaging service and used it to prevent the channel launch
As the saying goes, "Ours is not to do or die, Ours is but to question why!":dev
From either the conventional "technical issues" or "because it's charlie" to more devious ones like the "Direct/NDS/Confricker Conspiracy Theory" which goes something like this, Direct was upset with the leaps that e* is making on the HD front, that NDS unleashed the confricker virus, which gave them access to e*'s internal messaging service and used it to prevent the channel launch
As the saying goes, "Ours is not to do or die, Ours is but to question why!":dev