More Than A Million UK Homes Switch To Digital TV In Q4 ’06
More than one million households converted to digital television in the three months to the end of December last year in the UK, according to a new report from Ofcom.
According to the communications regulator, growth has been driven by another strong quarter for digital terrestrial television (DTT), with total sales of DTT equipment reaching 2.4 million.
The digital cable and satellite platforms also added over 300,000 households between them during the quarter. This means that more than 77% of households now receive digital television services on their primary set, up almost four percentage points from the previous quarter.
With a further 1.4% of households subscribing to analogue cable, the total number of homes receiving multi-channel television at the end of Q4 2006 stood at 78.6%.
The report states that the number of households with digital TV equipment connected to their main television set rose by more than one million to reach over 19.5 million.
Over 2.4 million DTT units were sold during the quarter, meaning sales have now exceeded the million mark for each of the last six quarters. Year on year, Q4 2006 sales were 24% higher, assisted by growing sales of integrated digital televisions, with sales exceeding one million in Q4.
Other key findings were that 70% of the growth in digital TV homes was accounted for by new DTT-only households, which increased by around 700,000 to around 7.7 million over the quarter.
Latest Ofcom estimates suggest there were also around 815,000 free-to-view digital satellite homes. Bringing total free-to-view households to around 8.5 million (DTT and free-to-view satellite).
The number of BSkyB UK subscribers rose by 158,980 and approached eight million by the end of Q4. When free-to-view satellite viewers are included, the total number of satellite homes was almost 8.8 million.
The number of net cable subscribers increased by 38,500 during the quarter with total subscribers of over 3.3 million. Digital cable subscribers increased by almost 84,000 and now account for over three million, or almost 90%, of all cable.
Recently, a survey revealed that five in six adults were unable to name the exact year their region will see the analogue signal switched off. It also showed that over half of the country thinks that the Government has not done enough to make sure people are kept informed of developments with digital switchover (see Five In Six Don’t Know Analogue Switch-Off Date).
The number of Freeview viewers is rapidly catching up with Sky according to the Ofcom figures, with the two platforms on 7.7 million and 7.9 million respectively.
A recent report from JupiterResearch forecast that in the period to 2012, Freeview will become the main television provider in more households than any other platform (see Freeview To Be Digital Switchover Winner).
| UK TV Platform Subscriber Figures | ||||
| Q3, 2006 | Q4, 2006 | Net Additions | Growth Rate | |
| Pay TV digital subscribers | ||||
| Digital cable | 2,929,271 | 3,013,171 | 83,900 | 2.9% |
| Digital satellite (Sky) (1) | 7,817,000 | 7,975,980 | 158,980 | 2.0% |
| TV over ADSL (2) | 43,000 | 43,000 | n/a | n/a |
| Total digital pay TV households (3) | 10,789,271 | 11,032,151 | 242,880 | 2.3% |
| Free-to-view digtal households | ||||
| Free-to-view DTT (Freeview) (4) | 7,004,000 | 7,703,000 | 699,000 | 10.0% |
| Free-to-view digital satellite (5) | 755,000 | 815,000 | 60,000 | 7.9% |
| Total Free-to-view households | 7,759,000 | 8,518,000 | 759,000 | 9.8% |
| Total UK digital households | 18,548,271 | 19,550,151 | 1,001,880 | 5.4% |
| Digital penetration | 73.3% | 77.2% | 3.9pp (6) | |
| Additional homes receiving analogue multi-channel services | ||||
| Analogue cable | 394,554 | 349,154 | -45400.00 | 11.5% |
| Multi-channel penetration | 74.8% | 78.6% | 3.8pp (6) | |
| Source: Platform operators, Gfk Research, Ofcom market estimates | ||||
| (1) BSkyB Subscriber figures include commercial premises and also TV over ADSL households that subscribe to Sky packages. There is therefore an element of overstatement in these areas | ||||
| (2) The Q4 figure for TV over ADSL refers to Homechoice figures as released in Tiscali’s Q3 results in November 2006, following the integration of Video Networks Limited (VNL) | ||||
| (3) Pay TV households do not include figures for Top Up TV which are not in the public domain. Top Up TV subscribers are therefore counted in free-to-view digital terrestrial homes | ||||
| (4) Ofcom uses survey data from Gfk for the number of homes where DTT is the only digital platform. The total number of all homes with DTT is therefore higher, due to homes with more than one multichannel platform | ||||
| (5) Ofcom estimates the number of viewers using satellite equipment to receive the free-to-view channels | ||||
| (6) pp=percentage points | ||||
| Note: Percentages may not add to 100% owing to rounding | ||||
Ofcom: 020 7981 3040 www.ofcom.org.uk