Freeview saw uptake increase by more than 40% in the three months to December in a development that helped to push digital television penetration to over half of all UK households.
The latest figures from Ofcom show that almost 3 million British homes received the digital terrestrial service in the final quarter of last year, with more than 860,000 set-top-boxes being sold during the same period.
According to the new communications regulator’s first Digital Television Update, almost 12.5 million British households had access to digital television by the end of last year, representing an impressive 50.2% of the country.
This overall figure includes Freeview’s 3 million digital terrestrial customers, BSkyB’s 7.2 million paying satellite subscribers, just over 2 million digital cable viewers and 211,000 homes that receive free-to-air digital satellite television.
A further 4% of British households subscribe to analogue cable television, which brings the total number of homes receiving multichannel services to 54.4%. The news should boost the Government’s chances of meeting its current 2010 deadline for turning off the analogue signal.
Freeview looks set to continue as a driving force behind the switch to digital and reports suggest the service, which rose out of the ashes of ITV Digital, will achieve penetration of 4 million households by the end of 2004, making it second only to BSkyB in the burgeoning multi-channel market.
However, the Government wants to wait until 90% of the country has digital television before switching off the analogue signal, and research suggests that it still has a long way to go in persuading the hardcore of digital refuseniks to make the change.
A study from the Generics Group reveals that around 13% of British householders claim they will not voluntarily switch to digital and a further 6% say they will never buy digital equipment even if it means having to stop watching television altogether.
