Anyone who wants confirmation of Verizon’s plans for high-definition programming can look to the Big Apple.  We’re launching Verizon FiOS TV in New York City with 100 HD channels, more than Time Warner or Cablevision.  We’re also offering our new channel lineup to existing FiOS TV markets in the New York City area, including parts of Long Island, the suburbs just north of the city, and northern New Jersey. 

If you include the 400 HD titles currently available through our video-on-demand service, FiOS TV customers in the New York metro area will have more than 500 HD choices at any time.  But we aren’t stopping there.  We’ll continue to expand our HD programming through the end of the year when we plan to have more than 1,000 monthly HD VOD titles plus all available major HD channels.  Shawn Strickland, Verizon VP of video solutions, talks about the NYC launch and HD in the video here.

What does this mean for customers who live outside the New York metro area?  Our year-end goal for HD programming is the same whether you live in Brookyln or Beaverton, Oregon.  We’re launching new content, region by region, in each of our FiOS TV markets.  Many new channels are already available in Indiana and Oregon, and the other markets will get new channels during the next few months.  Our other markets won’t see a one-time infusion of 100 HD channels, as we’re doing in New York, but they will see us add HD content over the remainder of this year.

Late last year we said we planned to reach 150 HD channels by year-end 2008.  We selected that bogey because our network has the capacity to do that or more, and because we projected that this volume of HD content could possibly be available in late 2008.  Admittedly, we started adding HD channels later than we anticipated, but the channel additions are now well underway.  We will have the capacity to offer 150 HD channels, but the ultimate number will depend on what new HD channels are available from programmers in each of the places where we offer FiOS TV.  With five months left in 2008, the New York City launch is a good sign of what’s to come.