Media regulator Ofcom says the number of UK households choosing to receive pay-TV services is now close to 50%.
According to the quarterly Digital Progress Report for the fourth quarter of 2008, 49.5% of households have a pay satellite or cable service on their main television set, up from 48.6% on the previous quarter.
However, there is also evidence that the free-to-air satellite service Freesat is failing to expand the market. Although the BBC-ITV venture had reached 233,000 sales by the end of December 2008 and was reporting 300,000 in March 2009, the regulator says that the 600,000 households receiving free satellite services was similar to previous quarters.
The total number of households with DTT on any set now stands at 17.7 million of which 9.5 million are households with ‘Freeview’ alone.
88.8% of households now receive digital television, an increase of 2.4 percentage points on 2007.
