Continued Growth To Push Freeview Past Cable Television

The success of Freeview shows no signs of slowing and the fledgling free-to-air service looks set to overtake cable to become the second largest platform for multi-channel television by the end of this year.

The digital terrestrial service, which is backed by the BBC and BSkyB, is expected to achieve penetration of 4 million households by the end of 2004, making it second only to BSkyB in the burgeoning multi-channel market.

Reports suggest that Freeview, which rose out of the ashes of ITV Digital, has already exceeded its 3 million household target and expects demand for its range of thirty free-to-air channels to rise by around a third over the coming months.

An industry insider told the Financial Times: “Freeview will pass the 3 million homes in the next few weeks and based on current running rates looks set to pass 4 million this year and possibly 5 million next year.”

The rapid growth of Freeview, which is also supported by the Crown Castle transmission group, has already exceeded the forecasts of analysts, who didn’t expected the digital terrestrial service to overtake cable until early 2005.

However, reports suggest the popularity of the platform has not led to a financial windfall for the project’s backers. Maiden financial figures at Freeview’s trading company, DTV Services, are thought to show an operating loss of £14,000 on turnover of £2.7 million in the fifteen month period to August last year.

Earlier this month Freeview received a blow after Matthew Seaman quit as head of the digital terrestrial service and entered talks to join a new pay-television operation due to be launched by former Sky executives, David Chance and Ian West.

The new Top-Up TV service is proposing to offer Freeview customers the chance to upgrade to a range of between six and ten pay-television channels. It will initially only be available to viewers with an old ITV Digital receiver, but add-on devices could enable anyone with Freeview to receive the channels (see Freeview Boss Quits As Sales Continue To Rise).

BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk

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