Freeview Could Overtake Satellite By End Of Year
Freeview could be set to overtake satellite by the end of the year, if it continues its current rate of growth.The service currently reaches 27.3% of all households, with satellite reaching 31.5%.
If Freeview continues to increase its market share by 2% a quarter, as it did in 2005, it will overtake digital satellite as the UK’s most popular television platform by the end of Q4 2006.
Meanwhile, 10.9% of households have digital cable, a 0.3% increase on last year, while analogue television accounts for 33.8% of households, although of course that figure will fall the nearer we get to the analogue switch off date (see Freeview To Overtake Sky In Analogue Switch-Off).
Ofcom’s recent Digital Progress Report showed that more people are watching digital television in the UK than ever before, with almost 7.1 million households using Freeview (see Digital Television Thriving In UK)
The IPA report shows that non-terrestrial channels account for 32% of all TV watched, an increase on the 28% recorded in Q1 2005, and the 24% recorded in Q1 2004.
Channel 4 was the only major terrestrial channel to increase its audience share in Q1, up from 9.7% in the first quarter of 2005 to 10% this year. Over the same period BBC One was down from 23.7% to 22.4%, BBC Two was down from 9.6% to 9.4%, ITV from 22.3% to 20.6% and Five from 6.4% to 5.9%.
Jim Marshall, the chairman of media agency Starcom and the IPA’s media futures group, said: “Digital television continues to grow at a significant pace, clearly most recently driven by the Freeview service.”
