Prime HD: What’s Wrong With This Picture (Part One)?

Sky TV should be ashamed of itself for misleading people into thinking the Delhi Commonwealth Games were going to screen in HD on its free-to-air channel, Prime.

It turns out, as several readers have noted in their comments on my Prime TV to Go HD – But For How Long? post, that Prime’s HD coverage of the games only can be accessed if you’re a My Sky HDi subscriber.

Sky communications chief Tony O’ Brien today confirmed this, telling ScreenScribe.tv: “You can only see Prime HD through My Sky HDi. Otherwise SD.”

Yet in Sky’s press kit about the games, it quite clearly states, under the headline, More Than 12 Hours a Day Live Free to Air on Prime, “All live Games coverage will be in HD.”

Further on, the document promises: “More than 16 hours of free-to-air live coverage each day on Prime in HD.”

Any reasonable thinking person would presume from this if they watch Prime free-to-air on FreeviewHD they will see the games in HD.

But FreeviewHD only has the ropey SD feed; somehow Sky has construed free-to-air to mean free-to-air only on Sky’s HD service – which, to receive, you need a My Sky HDi and presumably an HD ticket.

This is appallingly cynical and contemptuous behaviour on Sky’s part that damages its credibility as a broadcaster and beggars belief strategically: why squander an opportunity to showcase in HD exclusive free-to-air coverage of a global event like the 2010 Commonwealth Games?

More on this tomorrow.