Nearly five months after The Smithsonian Channel HD landed on DirecTV, the channel is now well on its way to Charter and FiOS TV systems. Sure enough, Smithsonian Channel has "reached affiliate agreements" with both Charter Communications and Verizon, and yes, the deals do include the SD and HD versions along with Smithsonian Channel On Demand content. Interestingly, no actual launch dates were announced for either carrier, but according to the release, Smithsonian Channel is looking forward to "announcing other distribution agreements over the next few months." Keep an eye on that EPG, you two sects.

The phrase patience is a virtue is what people waiting around tell each other to make themselves feel better. Well the DirecTV fans are no doubt saying this, and while no one seems to know exactly when DirecTV will turn on all the HD channels, we appear to have another slip. According to an article in B&C, the Smithsonian Channel HD will launch this Wednesday on DirecTV. It's totally possible that they'd be ready by then when you consider they did a 3 hour test in the early hours of Sunday morning, but at this point we'll believe it when we see it. As for the channel itself, they say they're launching with 75 hours of HD content. Is it just us, or does this not seem like that much, especially considering there are 168 hours in a week? Who knows what they're going to show the rest of the week, or perhaps they'll just show the same 75 hours over and over again till they bring the number up to 100 by the end of year.