Digital TV Households In UK Up To 88%

Ofcom’s latest digital television update, for the second quarter of 2008, reveals that take-up of multichannel television on main sets in UK households increased by 0.8%, from 87.2% to 88% in Q2.

The report found that over 22.5 million households had multichannel television equipment connected to their primary set by the end of Q2 2008.

Now that the majority of main sets are able to receive digital TV, many consumers are converting additional sets in the home; the regulator found that over 55% of all secondary TV sets have also been converted to multichannel.

This means that the proportion of all TV sets converted to multichannel reached 69% in Q2 2008, with the remaining 31% continuing to receive only analogue terrestrial broadcasts.

According to the report, the proportion of analogue-only terrestrial TV sets fell by almost 10%, from 41% in Q2 2007.

The total number of households with Freeview (DTT) reached 16.7 million in the second quarter of 2008.

Ofcom also revealed that over the past year more than 11.7 million digital terrestrial television (DTT) units have been sold, compared to only 7.6 million in the previous year – around two million DTT devices were sold in Q2 alone.

Integrated digital television sets (IDTVs) accounted for around 1.4 million units of these, up 54% compared with last year, while set-top boxes accounted for over 0.8 million.

DTT-only households accounted for around a quarter of all growth in multichannel main sets in Q2, rising by around 78,000 to reach 9.7 million homes.

Meanwhile, free-to-view digital satellite homes increased by almost 120,000 to 840,000 in the period, contributing over a third of net additions to multichannel main sets.

The report found that more than 40% of households, around 10 million, now have some form of free-to-view digital television on their main set.

Almost 9.6 million homes now have satellite, with pay satellite homes making up 91% of these and free-to-view making up the remainder.

However, cable was the primary viewing platform in 12.5% of homes in Q2, with digital cable accounting for around 95% of all cable television customers.

Digital cable added over 42,000 subscribers in the quarter, while Virgin Media reported net additions of around 24,000 new subscribers, which takes their subscriber base to over 3.5 million.

Ofcom: 020 7981 3040 www.ofcom.org.uk