Summary of Digital Television Expansion

By the end of March 2005 digital TV had reached 61.9% of households in the United Kingdom a growth of 2.5% up from 59.4% at the end of December 2004. In addition 3% of households were subscribing to analogue cable bringing the total figure up to 64.9%. In that quater of the year the total number of digital television households grew by 643,517.

By the end of 2005:
BSkyB’s subscriber numbers in the UK increased by 87,000 to reach 7,349,000 in the UK.

Freeview household numbers where estimated to have grown to around 5,059,350.

There where around 445,000 free-to-view digital satellite homes. This figure includes viewers who are no longer Sky subscribers but still receive the public service channels through their set-top box. Of the viewers that have stopped their Sky subcription service an estimated 300,000 still use their set up box to recieve all of the free-to-view public service channels.

In total there are now over 5.5 million free-to-view digital households. The total number of subscribers to cable television is now just under 3.3 million. Digital cable increased by just over 30,000 and now accounts for just over 2.5 million of the total. Latest estimates suggest that 25% of Freeview boxes are in households that already have digital (either Freeview, Sky or cable) on their main set. There are also a percentage of DTT boxes that are currently inactive mainly due to issues with reception.

Results taken from the ofcom website