Liberty Global: ‘Wait and see’ on 4K
February 17, 2016
By Colin Mann
Cable MSO Liberty Global has no immediate plans to introduce 4K services on its networks, although it has confirmed that deployed set-top boxes would be 4K-capable.
The remarks came during Liberty Global’s Q4 2015 Results Earnings Call, when CEO Mike Fries said that in terms of video pricing, he didn’t know whether 4K was going to make material difference. ”I think we are in a wait and see mode. It does have – been in CES where there too I am sure it has certainly an impact obviously marginally on the viewer and its experience.”
“So I think it’s too soon to say, we’ve got to have content, we’ve got – in terms of what will it mean to our broadband delivery and things of that nature, we are also in a wait and see mode. So we haven’t taken any action today per se to anticipate meaningful consumption of 4K,” he said, suggesting that it would be more impactful than 3D which everybody felt was going to have some material impact on consumer satisfaction but didn’t. “I think we are still in the early stages of knowing what that might mean to us.”
Balan Nair, CTO, suggested that beginning in 2017, the set-top boxes that it deployed would be 4K capable. “So we will be ready for it when the content catches up with it,” he stated.