The number of UK pay-TV households increased by two percentage points during 2012.
Data from the media regulator Ofcom showed 54% of TV households tool a pay-TV service. 37% of households subscribed to pay satellite in Q4 2012, the same proportion as in Q4 2011. 13% of households subscribed to cable in Q4 2012, which was also the same proportion as in Q4 2011.
3.4% of households had multichannel platforms other than digital terrestrial, satellite and cable, largely IPTV, up by 1.4 percentage points on Q4 2011.
There were an estimated 2.12m free-to-view digital satellite households in Q4 2012, up from 2.04m in Q4 2011, according to the survey data.
98% (25.1 million) watch TV through one of the principal platforms. The remaining 2% of households included households that watched television through a connected device (e.g. a games console), households that did not have a TV set and any other households whose TV sets could not receive a digital signal.
There is some overlap between platforms; 10,294,000 watched TV through DTT (Freeview) only, 2,688,000 were Sky only and 249,000 cable only.
