Freeview Households Pass Five Million
The number of freeview households has passed the five million mark, fuelled by a strong uptake during the first quarter of 2005, with 466,430 more homes adopting the digital television technology, according to the latest figures from media watchdog, Ofcom.
Ofcom estimates that, by the end of March, digital television penetration had reached 61.9% of UK households, up from 59.4% in the previous quarter, adding 643,517 new subscribers, to take the total of digital households to 15, 4 million.
BSkyB has added 87,000 subscribers in the same period, bringing its total number of UK subscribers to 7,34 million at the end of Q1 2005.
Ofcom now estimates that there are over 5.5 million free-to-view digital households, consisting of both Freeview viewers and free-to-view digital households, with the total number of homes using free-to-view digital satellite thought to be around 445,000.
The total number of subscribers to cable television is shown to be just under 3.3 million, with digital cable increasing by just over 30,000 and now accounting for just over 2.5 million of the total.
Ofcom’s findings reveal 3% of households continued to subscribe to analogue cable during the first quarter of 2005, bringing the total proportion of households receiving some form of multi-channel television to just over 64.9%.
The growth in popularity of Freeview shows no sign of slowing, with new research and forecasts from Continental Research predicting that the service will be in use by 6.1 million of the nation’s homes by the end of the year (see Freeview Set To Reach 6 Million Homes By Year End).
The company’s Digital TV Report for spring 2005 predicts that Freeview will continue to close the gap on Sky, with the satellite service expected to reach a subscriber base of 8.2 million in the same period.
The predictions follow growing momentum in Freeview sales, with figures released by the BBC Earlier this year demonstrating a surge in set-top box purchases in the run up to Christmas. According to the Corporation’s estimates, around 1.5 million digital terrestrial boxes and integrated TV sets were sold in the three months to 25 December (seeChristmas Shoppers Push Freeview Into Five Million Homes).
Ofcom: 020 7981 3040 www.ofcom.org.uk