ABC's World News Tonight and Nightline enter high definition tonight
by Richard Lawler 
posted Aug 25th 2008 at 2:51PM
ABC's push for HD evening news comes to a head tonight, when World News with Charles Gibson and Nightline both hit your screen in 720p from the Democratic National Convention. Besides covering both conventions in HD -- and there'll be plenty of that in the '08 campaign -- when they return to the studio in September the HD love continues. 20/20, Primetime and World News on the weekend will all be HDTV-ready shortly after. B & C reveals ABC News is deploying the same Sony XDCAMs -- full HD newsgathering is on hold 'til 2009 -- used to bring home high definition Survivor this fall, add in a tropical location and it would likely be hard to tell which one we're watching.
Filed under: ABC, Primetime, New content
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
imonit @ Aug 25th 2008 3:28PM
Good for them. I've personally have exclusively watched NBC's Nightly News b/c it was the only one in HD. The more HD options, the merrier.
Aaron Smith @ Aug 25th 2008 3:35PM
Agreed, I enjoy Extreme Home Makeover but since it's not in HD, I don't watch it anymore. I also enjoy America's Funniest Home Videos, but don't watch that anymore either (although the home movies will most likely not be high def for a VERY long time). I'm in the same boat, I'll watch the news if it's in HD but if it's not, I don't watch it anymore. People that aren't switching right now to HD are going to get left in the dust. I am super prejudiced against non-hd these days.
Brian Kaempen @ Aug 25th 2008 6:18PM
Amen to both of you. Nightly News has even done some high-profile location HD when it's Brian Williams who's on location. I would like to see them go exclusively HD with EVERYTHING no matter how remote be HD, especially now that CBS and ABC are catching up to NBC.
-Brian
AR @ Aug 25th 2008 8:46PM
Except that for 50% of the program, the only thing in HD are the borders on the side of the screen with useless information or decoration.
LenSp @ Aug 25th 2008 9:07PM
While I love HD, couldn't they have waited till after the conventions? Seeing politicians of both parties in HD would probably lead to an increase in Americans plucking out their eyeballs to stop the pain.
Especially when just a few days ago we got to watch female beach volleyball players wearing white thongs in the rain in HD. It's just too cruel to follow that up with Obama's ears and McCain's jowls up close. *g*
R. A. Ray @ Sep 18th 2008 12:15AM
HD digital TV is crap! Got plenty of signal strength, but a bird farts between the transmitter and my receiver antenna and the sound goes and pixel errors occurs. I'll take better show content and some video snow before putting up with this crappy "hi" tech scam. Yes the picture is slightly better than a good analog picture, but it takes a perfect reception path, which is very rare in most places.
Of course most the broadcasters are going cheap with no talent shows of fat or insane people doing some nonsense contest. Car 54, where are you? I'll be reading a lot more after Feb. 17, 2009!