High def 4oD "difficult to justify"

Serving 4oD streams in high defintion is "difficult to justify" due to the costs involved, Digital Spy has been told.

Forum member Wayne Moule asked Channel 4 head of online products Richard Davidson-Houston whether the broadcaster's on demand service would go HD this year. Davidson-Houston responded: "It would seem inevitable that we will go HD at some stage. I'll tell you absolutely straight that there is no one working on it. The problem for us, being a commercial organisation, is if we're going to stream in HD it costs us more money. Unless advertisers or somebody else is prepared to pay more money to us, then it's a very difficult thing to justify doing."

Davidson-Houston dismissed worries that Channel 4's financial state would dampen the development of 4oD, however.

"The point is that 4oD is about taking our content to new platforms and new people. The so-called Channel 4 financial situation is what it is and does mean that we are unable to invest as much as we would like to in our television programming. But investments in 4oD and new platforms have always been very prudent, to use the prime minister's word. We operate commercially so we don't make random investments in stuff. We're always looking for the best investment because that is how we run new media at Channel 4. However, there is no sense that because of X about Channel's 4's funding situation, we won't be doing anything on 4oD."