Ofcom has said the BBC launching an HD channel would not cause a "significant" negative effect on commercial stations and green lighted the move to launch BBC HD on Freeview.
However due to lack of space on the radio spectrum it will only be for four hours a day, between 02:00 and 06:00. Something that won't change until we stop wasting bandwidth on analogue transmissions, which is planned nationwide for 2012, although some more advanced, modern and developed regions of the country will be doing it in 2008 and 2009.
I say we turn off analogue NOW. Scrap all these rubbish channels like QVC, Bid TV and Price Drop TV, just by taking those offline we'd have enough bandwidth for one HD channel running all day long. Then cut back on the amount of +1 channels which everybody is wasting bandwidth on, and kick Murdoch's crap off Freeview too.
Come on Ofcom stop pussy footing around and free up the spectrum, and don't think about giving it to mobile phone companies if they're only going to waste it on low-speed data services.