[interestednovice]

Indeed, the BBC HD channel started as a trial before becoming a full service. The trial started on 15th of May 2006, the full service 1st of December 2007.

BBC One HD launched on the 3rd of November 2010, BBC HD became BBC Two HD on 26th March 2013.

All of the main BBC channels became available in HD on satellite on 10th December 2013.

So really about 3 years from the launch of BBC One HD (HD going “mainstream”, rather than a specialist service) until most BBC channels were in HD.

21st February 2023 was the completion of HD rollout as, by that date, every version of BBC One was regionalised in HD and every service (including Red Button & Parliament) broadcast in HD.

We are now experiencing a tidying-up exercise to move stragglers off SD.

The BBC have probably been planning all this for years, of course, which is why they will have chosen the transponder they have for Nightlight, probably because it’s lease is up first. They may even have been planning it as far back as agreeing the lease. They managed to complete the satellite migration especially in an extremely efficient way, in fact unprecedented.

So really to accuse them of being too slow is unfair, in my view.