Picture: Vismedia
Almost three-quarters of secondary TV sets have now been converted for digital reception, according to the latest Digital Progress Report, issued by the regulator Ofcom.
74% of secondary sets had been converted to digital by the end of 2010, an increase of 6.7 percentage points on the year and 3.3pp quarter on quarter. By the end of Q3 82.4% of all TV sets had been converted to digital television, a 3.9pp year on year and also up by 2.3pp quarter on quarter.
While 10 million homes receive DTT on their main set, 19.6 million homes have it as the primary means of reception on their second sets. Satellite’s platform share falls from 43% to14% between the first and second sets, while cable drops from 12 to 4% with both figures remaining stable over the last three years.
Satellite remains the most popular means of reception on the primary TV set. Ofcom estimates 9.4 million households received pay satellite services at the end of the third quarter – BSkyB’s reported 10 million customers also includes the Republic of Ireland.
There are also 1.6 million homes that have free-to-air satellite, a 600,000 increase on 12 months ago, and a figure that would include both Freesat and lapsed Sky subscribers.
Sales of DTT equipment is continuing to fall, standalone DTT receivers representing 608,000 of the 2,506,641 units sold in Q3 2010. IDTVs now picking up the bulk of sales.
