Nearly half the 60 million sets in the U.K.’s 25 million TV house...
Nearly half the 60 million sets in the U.K.’s 25 million TV households received DTV last year, telecom regulator Ofcom said in its quarterly progress report. At the end of 2006, 48.5% of the sets were receiving the country’s…
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standard definition TV either by terrestrial broadcast, satellite or cable, Ofcom said. That compares with 44.7% in the quarter ended Sept. 30 and 39% at year-end 2005. During 2006’s 4th quarter, 1 million U.K. homes acquired DTV for the first time. At year-end, 77.2% of homes had some form of DTV, up from 73.3% in the 3rd quarter and 69.5% at the end of 2005, Ofcom said. The last quarter also saw continued growth in the number of secondary sets converted to digital. More than 9 million 2nd sets are now connected to a DTV set-top, up from 7.9 million in the 3rd quarter and 6 million in 2005. Key trends for Q4 2006 included record quarterly sales of Freeview, the U.K.’s free terrestrial DTV service. Some 2.4 million Freeview devices were sold, up 24% compared with Q4 2005. The tally included a record one-million TVs with integrated DTV tuners. Freeview set-top boxes accounted for the balance. Some 700,000 analog terrestrial homes acquired Freeview for the first time during the period, accounting for 70% of the growth for DTV in the quarter. Freeview set tops are now in 10.6 million homes, up from 9.3 million in Q3 2006, and 7.7 million of the boxes are connected to the main set in the home, typically in the living room. More than 1/4, or 15 million, of the U.K.’s TVs are now connected to a Freeview set top, Ofcom said. Satellite remains the key conduit for DTV, with subscription BSkyB and free-to-view satellite accounting for service to 9 million homes. The satellite platform added 200,000 households in the 4th quarter. Of these, BSkyB gained around 160,000 new subscribers, increasing its presence to almost 8 million homes, Ofcom said. Satellite is on the main TV in 35% of homes, more than any other platform, and this compares to 34% at the end of 2005. BSkyB gained an additional 133,000 multiroom subscribers during the quarter -- a service that allows viewing on a 2nd set and has 1.2 million subscribers. Also, the number of subscribers using Sky’s hard-drive PVR service increased by 276,000 during the quarter to almost 2 million, equating to 25% of its total subscriber base. Cable providers gained around 38,500 additional TV households in the 4th quarter. There are now 3.3 million cable TV households, 90% of them receiving DTV, Ofcom said.