TV One to Go Wild Over More HD

The popularity of Frozen Planet and Nature’s Great Events, which continues tonight at 8.30, has encouraged TV One to screen more natural history content in HD.

The next BBC wildlife series to go out in 1080i will be Yellowstone.

It originally aired off-peak in SD but in the wake of high ratings for Planet and Events, soon will be repeated in HD on Tuesday nights.

The natural history slot has proved a boon for TV One, out-rating TV3’s NCIS and sometimes even TV2’s HD crowdpleaser, Go Girls.

The year-in-the-life of America’s great National Park is a visually stunning three-part series and TVNZ’s decision to acquire HD masters signals the importance HD is beginning to play in programmers’ consciousness.

“TVNZ progressively want more content to be in HD,” a spokeswoman says, “especially natural history, which clearly benefits from transmission in HD.

“Looking forward, we are definitely aiming to increase the amount of HD content on TV One.”