Editor's note: This story has been updated with responses from McDonald's.

McDonald’s’ expansion of a test of an in-restaurant television channel in California could generate potential benefits but at a high cost, according to one industry expert.

While McDonald’s stands to boost its dine-in business by encouraging customers to linger longer over McD TV, Leo Kivijarv, vice president of research for PQ Media LLC, an expert on “digital out of home” networks, said such systems are “really expensive,” and the chain must determine how it will pay for the service.

This week, McDonald’s Corp. said it will expand a test of its McDonald’s Channel that began in 2008 at single units in Las Vegas and Los Angeles to 645 restaurants across central and southern California.

“While we continue to look at making this branded content available to our customers, it would be premature to speculate on what additional restaurants/markets may be added to the test,” Ashlee Yingling, a media relations representative for Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald’s Corp., wrote to Nation’s Restaurant News in an e-mail.

One result of McDonald’s implementation of an in-house channel is that it could help to boost dine-in sales and traffic. McDonald’s approximately 14,000 domestic restaurants currently do more than two-thirds of their business at the drive-thru.

“With its family-friendly, all-HD programming, the McDonald's Channel will offer our customers an enhanced dine-in experience that they can share with family, friends and colleagues," Brad Hunter, McDonald's USA senior marketing director, said in a written statement about the expanded test, which begins in the fourth quarter.