Digital television subscriptions soar

More people are embracing digital services than ever before, a report has found.

The quarterly Communications market: Digital television progress report compiled by telecoms regulator Ofcom , found that in the months between October and December 2006, 48 per cent of the UK's 60 million television sets were connected to a digital device.

This was almost double that of the previous quarter (July to September) and over a third more than the number of households who had a digital connection at the end of 2005.

Ofcom found that Freeview devices accounted for three-quarters of this growth. Some 2.4 million Freeview devices were sold within the reported quarter with 700,000 homes acquiring digital television for the first time.

Sky won the subscription war – around 160,000 new subscribers signed up to its services over the quarter, compared to rival Virgin Media and other cable providers, which gained approximately 38,500 between them.

There has also been a continued growth in the number of secondary sets in homes that now have digital access. This figure rose to nine million; an increase from nearly eight million in the last quarter and just over six million from the year before.

An Ofcom spokesman said the figures were “healthy and encouraging”. He said Ofcom had no comment on why there has been such a big increase, as the report is just a snapshot of data, but the continued rise follows the trend of previous years.

“Although this is one of the highest rises we have seen, digital services do tend to rise in the last quarter of every year. The figures for this time are always the highest,” he said.