Freeview To Overtake Sky In Analogue Switch-Off
Freeview will lead the analogue switch-off in Britain, with 60% of all new digital homes taking the service in 2006 and 2007, the latest report by ZenithOptimedia predicts.
The report states that Freeview will become the largest digital platform in the UK, overtaking Sky Digital. 70% of television homes were digital at the end of 2005 and ZenithOptimedia predicts this will rise to 98% by the end of 2010, halfway through the four-year switch-off process.
Last year the commercial analogue channels attracted 42% of viewing in Freeview homes, compared to 29% in digital cable homes and 27% in digital satellite homes.
Every new digital home reduces the viewing share of the analogue terrestrial channels, but many of the new digital homes as possible should take Freeview, where they face the least competition.
While in the short term Freeview’s exponential growth is eating into their audiences, the faster it grows now the more viewing they can expect once digital is universal.
The migration of audiences from premium-rate analogue channels to digital channels is making television advertising cheaper. Prices fell 1.6% in 2005 and will fall 3.1% this year; ZenithOptimedia expects television deflation to continue for at least the next few years.
This deflation is restraining the growth of television ad expenditure, which ZenithOptimedia forecasts to grow by 1%-2% a year at least until 2010, at about half the rate of the ad market as a whole.
Freeview: 08708 80 99 80 www.freeview.co.uk