ITC REVISE AND AMEND CABLE STATISTICS

FOLLOWING consultation with the cable companies, the ITC have revised and amended their quarterly cable statistics.
The new series, spanning the period 1 January 1999 to 1 October 2000, are presented below.
Over the year to 1 January 2001, the main cable developments were:
Cable TV uptake rose by 9.8 per cent, with subscribers passing the 3.5 million mark. Around 900,000 of these homes are receiving a digital service. Cable TV penetration has risen by 1.9 percentage points to 28.1 per cent of homes passed and marketed.
Taking into account around a further 1 million homes that are telephone only customers, over 4.5 million homes were connected to a cable service. This represents a year-on-year rise of 6.2 per cent. Total cable penetration stood at 35.8 per cent of homes passed and marketed, a 1.3 percentage point increase.
The upswing in cable TV's digital conversion process has led to cable TV's share of the digital pay TV market rising by 10.6 percentage points, to 13.7 per cent.
With the digital conversion process gathering momentum and almost 15 per cent of TV households having cable TV, either on a digital or analogue basis, the latest figures show that cable remains a growing distribution platform, with a key role to play in offering choice to consumers in the digital future.
At 28.2 per cent, growth in the uptake of satellite TV was stronger than that for cable TV. Digital terrestrial television (DTT) achieved a growth rate of 83.3 per cent, albeit from a low base.
Consequently, cable TV's share of the total pay TV market declined by approximately 5.0 percentage points, to stand at 37.5 per cent.
The ITC aims to publish the cable statistics every quarter. They are based on returns made to the ITC by every licensed cable operator. The totals of homes receiving programme channels are derived from those figures and checked by the programme companies themselves. (CD)