World Cup prompts soaring sales of HD screen

The FIFA World Cup has, as expected, prompted soaring sales of high-definition television sets. The Financial Times quoted research firm GfK saying 400,000 flatscreens—most of them carrying the HD Ready logo—were sold in the five weeks to last Saturday.That’s up from the 150,000 sold in the same period a year ago, said the FT. But though screens are flying out of shops relatively few will have been connected to HD set-top boxes from BSkyB or Telewest.

Sky took 40,000 orders for its HD service but was forced to delay delivery of 17,000 due to set-top box shortages. Sky told the FT that it was installing thousands of Sky HD boxes every day and all advance orders would be met before the end of the World Cup.
Meanwhile Sky announced it will broadcast live coverage of the 2006 Ryder Cup matches in HD. Matches will be broadcast exclusively live on Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports HD.