DTT and satellite were the main winners in 2009, as take up of digital television in UK households reached 91.4%, an increase of 1.9 percentage points on the year.
According to Ofcom’s quarterly Digital Television Update, pay satellite services grew by 1.1pp year-on-year to each 35.8% of UK homes, or a total of 9.2 million households. Free satellite closed the year on 2.5% or 600,000 households, a figure somewhat at odds with Freesat’s recently announced one million homes.
The figure is particularly intriguing given that Ofcom lists four types of free-to-air satellite reception:
Those who have churned from BSkyB’s pay services but have retained their satellite equipment so that they can continue to receive free-to-view channels; users of BSkyB’s own non-subscription services including ‘Freesat from Sky’, which requires a one-off installation payment of around £147; homes taking the ‘freesat’ service offered by the BBC and ITV; and those that have obtained satellite-receiving equipment from suppliers other than Sky or freesat.
Ofcom is aware of the discrepancy and the way the figures have fluctuated. The regulator believes that some respondents to its survey are unable to differentiate between free and pay services.
Free-to-view digital satellite (Households)
| Q4 2008 | Q1 2009 | Q2 2009 | Q3 2009 | Q4 2009 |
| 597,000 | 503,000 | 682,000 | 667,000 | 643,00 |
DTT only homes achieved 39.6% (10.1 million), while 72.6% (18.6 million) could receive DTT (Freeview) on at least one television set. However, cable lost 0.4pp to end 2009 on 12.4% (3.2 million).
As analogue switch off gets into its strid,e 79% of all TV sets had been converted to digital by the end of 2009, up 6.7pp on one year ago. A total of 69% of all secondary TV sets have been converted.
Pay-DTT penetration on primary and secondary increased to 2.3% in the last quarter of the year, from 1.9% in Q3 and 1.5% in Q4 2008, perhaps reflecting interest in ESPN that joined the Top Up TV platform in the summer. At 1.4%, other platforms, including BT Vision and Talk Talk TV (the former Tiscali TV), barely merits a mention.
Freeview set-top boxes accounted for almost 1.2 million sales in the quarter to December 31, 2009, down 7% on the previous Q4. In 2009 almost 13.7 million DTT units (IDTVs and set-top-boxes) were sold, compared to 12.5 million in 2008, an increase of 9%.
DTT equipment quarterly sales
| DTT quarterly sales (actuals) | Q4 2008 | Q1 2009 | Q2 2009 | Q3 2009 | Q4 2009 |
| Freeview set-top boxes | 1,409,220 | 922,320 | 684,600 | 696,360 | 1,247,000 |
| Integrated Digital Televisions (IDTVs) | 3,059,700 | 2,453,325 | 2,004,694 | 2,154,600 | 3,491,000 |
| Total sales | 4,468,920 | 3,375,645 | 2,689,294 | 2,850,960 | 4,738,000 |
| DTT DVR sales* | 394,000 | 291,000 | 213,600 | 203,805 | 329,000 |
Source: Sales figures from GfK, as adjusted by Freeview
The 5% upwards adjustment represents Freeview’s estimate of the number of DTT set-top boxes and IDTVs sold in Northern Ireland and
offshore islands.
*DVR sales include devices that combine DVR and DVD recording functionality.
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