One in five digital households are now free-to-air

By March 31 2003 multichannel and digital TV penetration are estimated to have increased to 48.6% and 43.9% of UK households respectively.
Free-to-air digital services (including both free-to-air digital terrestrial and satellite) have accounted for 60% of the growth in the UK digital TV market since the launch of Freeview, according to the ITC's latest Multichannel Quarterly. This means one in five digital households are now free-to-air.
Overall the increase in digital penetration over the last quarter (January - March 2003) was attributable to the following key developments:
DTT showed substantial growth over the quarter reaching 1.6m DTT households; Sky has added more than 143,000 paying subscribers, leading the pay TV market with 6.4m UK households; and Cable also contributed to the growth in digital penetration by adding over 56,000 digital subscribers bringing the total number of digital cable homes to 2.1m.
(GB)