New HD launched in Columbus, Evansville and Bowling Green

Yesterday, I announced some exciting new additions to our digital television product – new QuickView channels and Primetime On Demand. Today I have some more announcements for our customers in Columbus, Evansville/Henderson and Bowling Green.

As part of our continued commitment to deliver the highest quality HD channels, 6 new HD channels are now available in Columbus, 8 new HD channels are now available in Evansville/Henderson, and 4 new HD channels are now available in Bowling Green.

As you can probably imagine, customers contact us each day because they want more of the best HD channels available. The HD channels we’re announcing today are some of the most highly requested channels out there.

The new HD includes:

• Columbus - 6 new HD channels: Spike, Comedy Central, Hallmark, MTV, Nickelodeon and HD Pay per view.
• Evansville/Henderson - 8 new HD channels: Spike, Comedy Central, Hallmark, MSNBC, Cartoon Network, Golf, Fox Sports Ohio, and HD Pay per view
• Bowling Green - 4 new HD channels: Spike, Comedy Central, Hallmark and HD Pay per view.

Now, for those of you in other markets, rest assured that more HD is on the way. As many of you know, we’ve already announced plans to transition our Lexington and Northern Kentucky districts to an all-digital format. This will allow us to deliver around 100 of the best HD channels and a 50 Mbps broadband service, or even faster, in both of those areas. And I can tell you we’ve got really big things in store for Louisville, too.

We’ll have more on these fronts in the coming weeks.

Comments

[Ryan]

Its about time you add some more HD channels to Evansville. Just add G4 HD and you will offer the channels I want (with the exception of the compression)

[Watson]

It's killing me that all these same channels and more were announced for Northern Kentucky in January (JANUARY!) but we still don't even have any indication of when we'll actually get them. Terrible.

[Justin]

As part of the NKY market, I would take this news with a TINY grain of salt. As the above person said, we were told something very similar and never received anything. Instead, we were told to "wait for digital"... Very disappointing. I am never going back to satellite, but the second another option comes to NKY (FIOS, Uverse, etc) I will strongly evaluate other means of TV delivery.

[Donald]

I too am a NKY Insight customer and, since that announcement many many months ago that NKY would be first to get more HD, I have nightly wished for Comedy Central and MSNBC high def channels (stopped watching MSNBC, in part because of no HD). If we get about 100 channels, that would be great. I also look forward to trying out Insight's faster Internet when it rolls out and dropping Cincinnati Bell's fuse service.

PS: How could you go on vacation when we are still hanging on the January promise of more HD? Just kidding...

[John]

Insight customers...you don't know how good you have it.

Just moved to another state served by another cable company. $35 for 1.5 mbps Internet service... $35 for 52 channels of basic service... no HD... no DVR...

Appreciate what you have from a company that wants to bring you more...

[Al]

I've been with insight my entire adult life (10+ years). I like Insight...but the reality is that they bring us more to charge us more.

I acknowledge that insight customer service has gone from horrible to good over the past couple of years.

My major gripe is that I pay 10-15 bucks more per month then new customers. I called customer service and they were not authorized to lower my bill. I like insight and have no plans to cancel.

Here is what I think Insight should work on next:
1. Continue HD rollout as currently planned
2. Either make HD/DVR cable box free or include HD Pak for free with rental of HD/DVR box.
3. Introduce a loyalty program that provides a discount for long term customers.
4. Once 100% digital, provide secondary cable boxes for free (or refundable deposit).

Bonus requests:
1. If you don't want to give me the cable boxes for free, then take $200 deposit now and refund me when I return your box.

2. If you are going to institue a rate increase, please do it when you roll out new features. I just had a major rate increase, but I'm also waiting for the HD channels announced in January (HD commedy central!). I don't mind paying more if you give me more.

3. MLB channel please!

[Not An Insight Customer]

Still waiting for digital in Ashville, OH.

[Thomas]

as many of you know insight northern ky has a bandwidth issue. which is the very reason for the delay on the HD channels promised back in Jan and the reason we are waiting for the all digital roll out here are some very promising numbers i was told yesterday. For every analog channel we move to digital we can add 9 digital channels or 4 HD channels and have bandwidth for faster internet now northern ky has about 70 analog channels so thats 630 digital channels or 280 HD channels or 100 mbps internet or anything in between so once we go full digital there will not be any bandwidth issues for a VERY long time and when we want to add new stations we won't have to wait for bandwidth to launch them we just turn them on as we get the rights to have them on our network

[Shane Laake]

Still waiting for ESPN3 in Columbus ...

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1558992255]

I received my 610 upgrade letter/info yesterday and it looks eerily like the Comcast "solution" my sister in Michigan has. The bottom line up there is that the mini-box will NOT pass any HD channels, eg the locals that are being supplied. When using the box, she does receive "MORE" channels, it's just that they're all of poor quality. I hope this is not the case for Lexington, else the web site for 610 upgrade should mention the need for a coax switch which should also be included in the hardware package.

[Jeffrey Sturm]

I have been an Insight customer in Lewis Center, OH (just north of Columbus) since 2003 and was wondering why networks like Comedy Central HD, FX HD, AMC HD all have the copyright flag thrown on them blocking me from watching a show recorded on one TiVo on a TiVo in a different room? From what I understand, with the exception of premium channels (HBO, Showtime), this flag is controlled by Insight. It's really handcuffing me and my whole-home-DVR solution.

Thanks.