There are now over 1 million cable television subscribers, according to the latest ITC cable statistics; 1,044,290 broadband homes were connected as of 1 July this year, an increase of over 330,000 or 48% on the previous year. However, cable telephony has been the fastest growing part of the cable operators’ business, with the number of telephone lines installed by operators up by 124% on last year, also to over 1 million.
Among the individual cable franchises, the area with the highest number of homes connected is Birmingham, with 78,222, way ahead of the next highest which is Avon, with 38,709 connected homes. However, the area with the highest penetration of connection is Swindon with 34.67% or 22,567 homes. The other areas with penetration of over 30% are Northampton, Cardiff and Mansfield.
Of the main operating companies, Telewest has passed the most homes, over 960,000, with a penetration of 21.1%; Comcast however has the highest penetration figure, at 26.4%. There are now seven channels which have an audience of over 1 million cable homes; these are: Sky One, Sky News, Children’s Channel, UK Gold, Eurosport, MTV, Discovery, Parliamentary and Bravo. Superchannel, TNT and the Learning Channel follow close behind with over 980,000 homes.
|
01-Jul-95 |
01-Apr-95 |
01-Jul-94 |
| No. of operating franchises |
92 |
86 |
69 |
| Broadband homes passed |
4,968,200 |
4,494,241 |
3,336,075 |
| Broadband homes connected |
1,044,290 |
963,132 |
707,707 |
| Subs as % of TV homes |
4.66% |
4.26% |
3.17% |
| Average penetration |
21.00% |
21.40% |
21.20% |
| Pay/Basic ratio |
148% |
151% |
144% |
|
|
|
|
| Franchises providing t’phony |
82 |
75 |
48 |
| Telephone lines installed |
1,033,723 |
872,573 |
461,032 |
Source: ITC 0171 255 3000
