VOOM HD Networks shutting Down

[TVJunkie5]

The VOOM HD Networks, the 15 all-HD channels available in the US will be shutting down sometime in January. Cablevision who owns the channels announced that due to the loss of carriage on Dish Network (I guess no one else wanted them either ;)) that they are shutting them down. The international operations, which include 3 channels here in Canada, will remain.

So the Canadian ones (Equator HD Canada, Rush HD Canada & Treasure HD Canada) are safe for now but who knows what the future holds?! Will High Fidelity be able to produce enough programming to keep them going now that they will be losing a major source of programming from the VOOM channels?

In the end I think it was too good to be true, 15 high definition channels was just too many IMO considering that HD is still in its infancy and that is just too many channels to create programming for. I think they should have kept like 3 or 4 instead of shutting them down completely. The are making it sound as though Dish is to blaim, well excuse me but why couldn't you get carriage with other providers like DirecTV, maybe that's your problem not just the fact that Dish dropped them.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...UteewD955VFT02

[Eye on the ball]

I suspect that the closing of VOOM's U.S. domestic operations will have only a tiny impact for the Canadian channel Treasure HD, and no impact at all for the Canadian channels Rush HD, Equator HD and Oasis HD.

There has never been a VOOM supplied program on Oasis HD, as VOOM is not into nature programming, and as far as I have been able to observe VOOM has only supplied a few programs to Equator HD Canada over the past year or so. For Rush HD, VOOM is keeping its international signal alive, so there should be no impact for Rush HD Canada. For Treasure HD, the programs that were being supplied by VOOM seem to have been replaced by better programs supplied by Smithsonian Channel HD.

Besides, the best stuff on Equator, Rush and Treasure comes from IMAX, not VOOM.

[musimax]

With channels like Kung Fu HD, it's no wonder the company failed and they are shutting down. Something like that I doubt would even work as an SD channel.

It looks like they went about it all the wrong way. Didn't they launch all of these channels at the same time? They should have started off with a few, specialize in those and basically build a brand for themselves and then if they work out, expand and launch more if need be.

The Canadian ones must have been expecting this to happen, for a while now they've been looking for other sources for HD programming like iMAX and Smithsonian Networks. I don't know if much will change, for a while at least. They will probably keep their names since the foreign channels will continue to operate and they have HD programming to pick from and Cablevision says in the release that they will replace the HD channels with other HD programming. So they still will probably want access to those and keep on good terms.