Television

Sara Kimberley, mediaweek.co.uk, 29 June 2009, 4:43pm

Digital TV take-up reaches 73% of UK households

LONDON - The use of digital television in UK households has increased by 5.7% year on year to 73%, according to the latest Ofcom findings.

This leaves the remaining 27% of the 60.2 million sets in the UK still continuing to receive analogue terrestrial broadcast, despite the looming digital switchover.

The take up of digital television on main TV sets has increased 2.4% year on year to 89.6%, while more than 61% of consumers have also converted their second television set to digital - an increase of 8% year on year, according to figures for Q1 2009.

In addition, sales of freeview enabled equipment reached almost 3.4 million units in Q1, up 7% year on year.

Freeview is still the most widely-used digital service on main sets, accounting for around 9.8 million homes, 38.5%, in Q1, up by 200,000 over the year.

The number of homes using freeview on any set in the home reached nearly 18 million - 70% - in Q1 2009, up by about 313,000 on Q4 2008.

The survey also revealed pay satellite customers accounted for almost 8.9 million homes, with free-to-view customers, which includes all homes with satellite TV on the main set, which do not pay a subscription, adding a further 0.5m.

Meanwhile, cable television was received in 13.2% of all homes, up 0.4% from the last quarter.

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TESS ALPS - 29 June 2009

Your heading is rather misleading. 90% of households already have digital TV, and over 90% of people. The 73% figure - as you make clear within the body copy - refers to the TV sets themselves; 2nd and 3rd sets get converted later than the main set.