Terrestrial gaining as Freeview set to overtake Sky

by Sarah Woods, Brand Republic 19-Jun-06, 11:00

LONDON - Freeview is set to overtake satellite TV as the main form of digital television within UK households during 2006, according to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising 'Trends in TV' report.

Digital terrestrial recorded an 8.3% year-on-year increase in market share, and now serves 27.3% of all UK households, standing behind satellite's 31.5% coverage, which recorded a 2% increase in share, according to the report.

If Freeview continues to increase its market share by 2% a quarter, as in 2005, it will overtake digital satellite, almost completely dominated by Sky Digital, as the UK's most popular television platform by the end of 2006.

Jim Marshall, chairman of Starcom and IPA Media Futures Group, said: "Digital television continues to grow at a significant pace, clearly most recently driven by the Freeview service."

However, despite the upsurge in digital television, a third of UK homes have chosen not to "go digital", the report shows.

Additional findings from the survey show that analogue television accounts for 33.8% of households and cable for 10.9%.

Channel 4 bucks the downward trends of major channels to record an increase in audience share from 9.7% in the first quarter of 2005 to 10% in the first quarter of 2006.

The other four main channels all lost audience share. BBC One is down from 23.7% to 22.4%, BBC Two is down from 9.6% to 9.4%, ITV has decreased from 22.3% to 20.6% and Five has fallen from 6.4% to 5.9%, between the first quarter of 2005 to 2006.

Viewers continue to switch over to non-terrestrial channels, now accounting for 32% of all TV watched, up from 28% in the first quarter last year, and 24% in the first quarter of 2004.

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