By the end of September 2006, almost three out of every four UK television households, or 73.3%, viewed digital television on their main TV set, according to the new Communications Market: Digital Television Progress Report from Ofcom.
Ofcom says that this represents growth of around 800,000 households over the three month period to September, around 600,000 of which were households watching digital terrestrial television for the first time.
As of September 2006 there were almost eight million second sets connected to some form of digital reception device, up from four million in the same period last year.
In addition, 9.3 million UK households now have DTT on at least one set in the home (up from 6.8 million in Q3, 2005), whilst sales of DTT equipment during the quarter approached 1.4 million, marking the fifth consecutive quarter with sales over the million mark. Sales in the three months to September 2006 were up 36% on the same period last year.
The report also reveals that more households watch DTT services than watch traditional analogue services on their main television set (7 million versus 6.4 million).
Meanwhile, digital satellite television remains the most popular digital television platform on primary television sets in UK households. As of September 2006, 33.9% of UK television homes (8.5m) either subscribed to BSkyB’s television services or received free-to-view satellite services, up 128,000 since June 2006.
During the third quarter the total number of satellite subscriptions increased by 68,000 which was 20,000 higher than the same period in 2005.
By September 2006, 1.7 million satellite subscribers had signed up to BSkyB’s Personal Video Recorder service, Sky+, up from 1.55 million in June 2006. One in five BSkyB customers now subscribe to Sky+.
Cable providers gained 22,000 additional television households over the three months to September 2006. This was the highest number of quarterly cable additions for over two years.
The cable networks continue to upgrade from analogue to digital, says Ofcom. As of September 2006, 88% of all cable television households were digital, up from 80% in September 2005.
There are now over 3.3 million cable television households (13.1% of all television households). In addition, 6% of the UK’s 60 million television sets are now connected to a cable television service.
At the start of December, Point Topic released a spatial model of the TV landscape which revealed that Freeview is threatening Sky’s dominance in parts of the UK (see Freeview Threatening Sky’s Dominance).
Meanwhile, In-Stat recently forecast that the global Digital Terrestrial TV set-top box market is poised to surpass $1 billion due to the analogue signal cutoff date of February 17, 2009 in the US, and prospects of a large Chinese market (see DTT Set-Top Box Market To Surpass $1 Billion).
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