DIRECTV Fails to Launch 100 HD Channels in 2007

If you are a subscriber to DIRECTV, you might be scratching your head and wondering where all of your HDTV channels are. You might remember that the company had launched a major marketing campaign last year regarding its HD offerings. The campaign focused around the promise that customers would have 100 HD channels by the end of the year.

Unfortunately for DIRECTV customers, the company fell a tad short. In fact, they only managed to squeeze out 87 channels by the end of the year. Nonetheless, the company considers its campaign to have been very successful.

“The marketing group for DIRECTV did a very good job at sort of having a message that resonated with the marketplac,” said Chase Carey, CEO of DIRECTV. “The 100 channels was relatable, was understandable – and, I think, grabbed people.”

That sounds great for DIRECTV, but what about the customers? Was the company purposely being misleading to the public when it said they would receive 100 HD channels? Or, were there other circumstances getting in the way?

According to the company, the failure to hit 100 was due to the fact that some of the channels simply didn’t launch their high-def networks when they expected them to be launched.Critics say that the company still could have launched any of the two dozen HD channels that have not been placed into the regular lineup yet, among these being the 15 channel suite that is being offered from Voom Networks. DIRECTV, on the other hand, says they did not want to launch new channels just for the sake of hitting the magical number of 100.

Regardless of how we may or may not feel about DIRECTV’s failure to launch 100 HD channels in 2007, the company did manage to get more of these channels out than any other provider. I suppose that is still quite an accomplishment.