Cable TV Uptake Increases 6.5% Year on Year

3.65 million people in the UK now have cable TV, an increase of 6.5% on the same period last year, according to the ITC’s cable statistics figures for the third quarter of 2001.

The figures show that 15% of all UK households now have access to cable TV, which has increased its penetration by 2.1% over the last year to 29.1% of homes passed and marketed.

The report shows that around 1.8 million cable TV subscribers receive a digital service and over 132,000 cable modems are now being used to provide high speed internet access.

According to the ITC, the digital pay-TV market is showing signs of slowing growth and cable’s share of the market rose slightly to just over 21% by October 2001. Switch over from analogue to digital on cable is also progressing and satellite has already successfully migrated all its analogue customers over to digital.

Figures for October 2001 show that cable TV’s share of net additions has remained lower than that for satellite TV and digital terrestrial TV. As a result cable TV’s share of the pay TV market has declined by over 3% year on year, standing at 35.2% as of 1 October 2001.

ITC: 020 7306 7743 www.itc.org.uk

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