Digital TV in over 80% of U.K. Homes, Freeview Overtakes Sky

More than 80% of U.K. homes now have digital television on the main set, according to Ofcom’s Digital Television Progress Report for the first quarter of 2007, reports MarketingCharts. That household digital TV adoption (80.5%, or 20.4 million homes) is up from 77.2% the previous quarter.

The report also finds that Freeview is on the main set in 8.4 million homes (up from 7.7 million in the previous quarter), and has now overtaken the number of Sky U.K. subscribers (8.0 million in Q1).

During the quarter a further 869,000 U.K. homes acquired digital television for the first time, following over a million additions in the previous quarter.

Key trends for the first quarter of 2007 include the following:

• Digital Terrestrial Television - Freeview services: In total, 1.96 million Freeview devices (set-top boxes plus integrated digital televisions) were sold during the quarter, up from 1.2 million in the first quarter of 2006 (61% rise year-on-year). This was the highest first quarter for Freeview sales ever.
• Digital Satellite Television - Sky subscribers and free-to-view satellite services: Sky grew its customer base by 32,020 during the quarter, taking its total number of U.K. subscribers to just over 8 million.
• Cable Television - Virgin Media services plus others: With 3.4 million subscribers at the end of the quarter, cable rose to its highest level of adoption in almost five years (13.4% of U.K. homes).
• Television over Broadband (Tiscali TV): An additional 19,000 homes took a broadband television service during the quarter, an increase of 44.2% on the previous quarter.

MarketingCharts provides more data from the Ofcom report.