UK Digital TV Penetration Exceeds 80%
More than 80% of households in the UK now receive digital television services on their primary set, up from more than 77% in the last quarter, with almost 82% of homes receiving multi-channel TV at the end of Q1 2007.
The free to air platform has overtaken subscriber service Sky, and Freeview is now on the main set in 8.4 million homes, compared to Sky’s eight million, after selling almost two million set-top boxes between January and March alone. In total, 46% of UK homes, some 11. 7 million, now watch TV through a Freeview device.
The report forecasts that the BBC Trust’s decision to approve the executive Board’s FreeSat proposition, which is to launch next year should cause the number of free satellite homes to grow further.
Despite Freeview’s success, Sky also increased its customer base, by just over 32,000 during the same period, and Virgin Media gained 36,100 new homes to 3.4 million after recording a take-up of 13.4%, its highest level in almost five years.
The Sky+ service saw another quarter of growth, adding almost 200,000 new subscribers in the first quarter of the year, taking the total to over two million homes. This means that more than one in four of all Sky subscribers now have the service.
Sky’s HD service also added 60,000 subscribers, taking the total number to 244,000 by the end of Q1, equivalent to 3% of Sky’s subscriber base.
Meanwhile, Virgin’s V+ service grew from 79,000 users last quarter to 150,000 for Q1 2007.
Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom, said: “More than four in five UK households are now enjoying the benefits of digital television. It’s great news that we are continuing to see the market grow strongly as we approach the start of digital switchover.”
Ofcom’s report also shows that the number of homes receiving analogue terrestrial television on their primary set fell by 3.1% during Q1 2007, whilst over the year analogue television take-up has fallen by almost 10 percentage points from 28.2% in Q1 06 to 18.3% by Q1 07.
At the start of this year, a report from JupiterResearch claimed that Freeview would be the big digital switchover winner in the next five years, with pay-TV companies such as Sky and Virgin Media set for a struggle to win customers (see Freeview To Be Digital Switchover Winner).
Meanwhile, at last summer’s ‘Future of TV’ seminar, hosted by MediaTel Group, Ford Ennals, chief executive of Digital UK, said that digital switchover would be fundamental to the landscape of how and what people watch on television in the next few years (see Digital Switchover Will Be Fundamental To TV Landscape).
Digital Take-up In UK Homes
| Q4 06 | Q1 07 | Growth Rate | |
| Pay TV Digital Subscribers | |||
| Digital cable | 3,013,171 | 3,088,371 | 2.50% |
| Digital satellite (BSkyB) | 7,975,980 | 8,008,000 | 0.40% |
| TV over ADSL | 43,000 | 62,000 | 44.20% |
| Total Digital pay TV subscribers | 11,032,151 | 11,158,371 | 2.30% |
| Free to view digital households | |||
| DTT (Freeview) only homes | 7,703,000 | 8,376,000 | 8.70% |
| Free to view digital satellite | 815,000 | 885,000 | 7.90% |
| Total free to view households | 8,518,000 | 9,261,000 | 8.70% |
| Total UK Digital Households | 19,550,151 | 20,419,371 | 4.40% |
| Digital Penetration | 77.20% | 80.50% | |
| Other multi-channel households | |||
| Analogue cable | 349,154 | 310,054 | -11.20% |
| Multi-channel penetration | 78.60% | 81.70% | |
| Source: platform operators, GfK research, Ofcom market estimates | |||