Ofcom: 13 million homes pay for extra TV channels

Almost half of all households with televisions in the UK are choosing to pay for additional TV channels, according to a new report from Ofcom.

The media regulator’s Digital Progress Report for Q4 2008 showed that 49.5% of UK television households pay for some form of digital TV for their main TV set, which is the equivalent to 12.7 million homes.

The research found that around 10 million homes – 39.3% of television households – have free digital television.

Around 3 million homes have analogue-only TV after a 2.4% year on year increase of UK households with a digital TV service – up to 88.8% of households in total, according to the report.

Ofcom also found that more than 60% of all secondary TV sets were converted to multichannel by the end of Q4 2008, up by around 11% year on year, while 72% of all TV sets had converted to multichannel television by the end of Q4 2008.

The most common form of digital television is digital terrestrial television, which is found in 17.7 million homes – with 4.5 million DTT devices ((HD-capable TVs and set-top boxes) being sold in Q4, driven by “record sales” of HD-capable integrated digital TVs, according to Ofcom.

BSkyB also enjoyed an increase in its customer base, which it claims grew by 171,000 to over 9.2 million households during Q4, with 52% using its VoD service.

Virgin Media also saw its subscriber base grow – up by 44,500 to 3.6 million during the quarter, with 52% using its VoD service.