Multi-Channel Television Statistics Q1 2004
Multi-channel TV now reaches 56.7% of UK homes, says the latest Digital Television Uptake report from industry watchdog, Ofcom.
Free-to-view households grew by 18% to 3.6 million households, while total UK digital households grew to just slightly over 13 million, up by 5.7%. The only digital platform to suffer a set back over the past quarter was ADSL, which fell by 2.6%.
| UK TV Platform Subscriber Figures | |||
| Q1 2004 | Q4 2003 | Quarterly growth rate | |
| Pay TV | |||
| Digital cable | 2,408,530 | 2,324,857 | 3.6% |
| Digital satellite (Sky) | 6,956,000 | 6,893,000 | 0.9% |
| ADSL | 8,664 | 8,887 | -2.6% |
| Total digital pay TV housholds | 9,373,194 | 9,226,744 | 1.6% |
| Free-to-view | |||
| Free-to-view DTT | 3,929,200 | 3,287,000 | 19.5% |
| Free-to-view digital satellite | 231,000 | 211,000 | 9.5% |
| Total free-to-view receivers | 4,160,200 | 3,498,000 | 18.9% |
| Total free-to-view receivers* | 3,699,100 | 3,134,700 | 18% |
| *Adjusted for double counting for houses that receive digital on more than one TV set | |||
| Total | |||
| Total UK digital households | 13,072,261 | 12,361,441 | 5.7% |
| Total UK multi-channel households | 13,989,006 | 13,339,581 | 4.9% |
| Multi-channel penetration | 56.7% | 54.2% | 2.5% |
| Digital penetration | 53% | 50.20% | 2.8% |
| Source: Ofcom, June 2004 | |||
The market share of total multichannel homes by platforms is as shown.
Sky increased its subscriber base by 66,000 during the quarter, reaching 6,956,000 however, this was a decrease when compared to Q4 2003 when 175,000 new subscribers joined the pay-TV service.
| Q1 2004 | Q4 2003 | |
| Digital Satellite – Pay TV Homes (BSkyB) | ||
| Pay-TV homes* | 6,956,000 | 6,893,000 |
| ARPU | £382 | £369 |
| Churn | 9.4% | 9.3% |
| Base package price | £13.50 | £12.50 |
| *excludes Republic of Ireland | ||
| Source: BSkyB 2004 results | ||
DTT showed another strong quarter of growth, says Ofcom, adding over 500,00 households, an increase of 18.6% on the previous quarter. A reason for the continued growth could be that set-top boxes have recently reduced in price to around £50 – about half the launch price.
| Q1 2004 | Q4 2003 | |
| Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) | ||
| DTT homes | 3,468,100 | 2,923,700 |
| ITV digital STV | 500,000 | 510,000 |
| Freeview adapters | 2,832,800 | 2,251,900 |
| IDTV sets | 596,400 | 525,100 |
| Source: Freeview Q1 sales figures and Ofcom market estimates, June 2004 | ||
UK cable households grew to over 3.3 million by the end of March 2004. Of these slightly over 2 million subscribed to NTL, 1.2 million to Telewest and the remainder to Omne Communications and Wightcable.
| Cable Trends | ||||
| NTL | Telewest | |||
| Q2 2003 | Q3 2003 | Q2 2003 | Q3 2003 | |
| Homes passed and marketed | 7,861,100 | 7,779,775 | 4,678,182 | 4,674,764 |
| Total residential subscribers | 2,923,200 | 2,867,885 | 1,742,144 | 1,730,438 |
| TV homes connected | 2,048,900 | 2,022,055 | 1,285,797 | 1,272,064 |
| Digital TV homes connected | 1,371,000 | 1,329,213 | 1,029,759 | 987,873 |
| TV penetration rate | 26.1% | 26% | 27.5% | 27.5% |
| ARPU (annualised) | £502.92 | £503.52 | £540.60 | £533.04 |
| Churn rate | 12.4% | 14.4% | 14.4% | 15.2% |
| Basic package price | £18.00 | £18.00 | £13.50 | £14.50 |
| Source: Telewest Broadband and NTL Q1 2004 results | ||||
The trends in multichannel TV and DTV penetration are shown in the table below.
| UK Pay-TV Trends, By Platform | |||||||
| Q3 2002 | Q4 2002 | Q1 2003 | Q2 2003 | Q3 2003 | Q4 2003 | Q1 2004 | |
| Digital Take Up | |||||||
| Digital cable | 8.3% | 8.3% | 8.7% | 8.8% | 9.0% | 9.4% | 9.8% |
| Digital satellite | 26.8% | 27.7% | 28.6% | 29.4% | 30.4% | 28.9% | 29.1% |
| DTT | 4.2% | 4.8% | 6.0% | 7.2% | 8.6% | 11.9% | 14.1% |
| ADSL | 0.1% | 0.05% | 0.05% | 0.04% | 0.04% | 0.04% | 0.04% |
| Total | 39.4% | 41.0% | 43.3% | 45.5% | 48.0% | 50.2% | 53.0% |
| Pay-TV Take Up | |||||||
| Digital cable | 13.8% | 13.6% | 13.4% | 13.1% | 13.2% | 13.4% | 13.5% |
| Digital satellite | 24.7% | 25.4% | 26.0% | 26.4% | 27.0% | 28.0% | 28.2% |
| DTT | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| ADSL | 0.1% | 0.05% | 0.05% | 0.04% | 0.04% | 0.04% | 0.04% |
| Total | 38.6% | 39.1% | 39.4% | 39.6 | 40.3% | 41.5% | 41.7% |