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Brewers game will be Charter's 1st on FSN Wisconsin in HD

Jeff Richgels  —  8/26/2008 1:07 pm

The Milwaukee Brewers-Pittsburgh Pirates game on Friday night will be the first Fox Sports Net Wisconsin telecast in high-definition carried by Charter Communications.

As previously announced, the Madison area's dominant cable provider launched FSN Wisconsin in HD on Channel 761 on Wednesday. However, the channel only carries programming when FSN Wisconsin is broadcasting in HD, with other FSN Wisconsin fare remaining on Charter Channel 26.

There are 10 other Brewers games scheduled to be telecast in HD by FSN Wisconsin this season, including Sunday afternoon's game against Pittsburgh. For the HD broadcast schedule, go to this page.

Charter's scheduled launch Wednesday of five other channels in HD -- Animal Plant-HD, TBS-HD, Smithsonian Channel-HD, In-DemandHD and The Movie Channel-HD -- has been delayed due to the controversy over Charter's planned move of area PEG (public, education and government) channels to its digital tier. For details, go to www.madison.com/tct/blogs/cityhall/300562.

Charter spokesman John Miller said in an e-mail Thursday that an announcement would be made soon regarding the launch of the five other HD channels.

Cable companies have been moving channels out of the analog spectrum to digital because analog uses more bandwidth than digital, and the extra bandwidth enables the companies to add more HD channels.

Fox announced earlier this year that it would broadcast all games on its regional sports networks, including FSN Wisconsin, in HD in 2009.

Jeff Richgels  —  8/26/2008 1:07 pm