Home > Media and Analysts > News Release Archive > 2006 > Feb > 28|02|06

28|02|06

Ofcom publishes Communications Market interim report

Ofcom today published its Communications Market interim report, including the latest data available for the second and third quarters of 2005.

The report provides an overview of developments within the telecoms, radio and television industries.

Key points include:

Telecoms

• There are now more than 10 million broadband connections in the UK. (By December 2005 there were 9.792 million broadband connections in the UK and the average broadband take up rate during the three months to December was more than 70,000 per week). Broadband as a consumer product has grown from 0 to 10 million in just over seven years.
• Retail revenues from all telecoms services in the 12 months to 30 September 2005 were £37.2 billion, more than 6% higher year-on-year. The growth was mainly from mobile services.
• Mobile revenues grew by 16% to £13.6 billion in the year to 30 September 2005.
• Domestic and business fixed-line revenues fell 9% to £10.3 billion in the year to 30 September 2005.
• Mobile virtual network operators, which offer retail mobile services by leasing network capacity from operators, now account for more than 5.5 million of the 62.5 million total mobile subscriptions in the UK.

Radio

• The share of all listening via digital platforms almost doubled to 10.5% over August/September 2005, from 5.9% over the same period a year earlier.
• Cumulative sales of DAB sets passed 2 million by the end of Q3 2005, with industry bodies suggesting that Christmas sales had boosted that total to 2.7 million by the end of the year.
• Commercial radio’s share of listening was smaller than the BBC’s (537 million hours of listening compared to the BBC’s 611 million), with preliminary Q4 figures suggesting that this trend continued to the end of the year.

Television

• Over the last two years, from December 2003 to December 2005, total television reach declined. The biggest fall was among younger people: by 2.5 percentage points for 25-34 year-olds and by 2.9 percentage points for 16-24 year-olds. Amongst the 16-24 age group, 2.2 percentage points were lost in the last year alone.
• The reach of multichannel TV grew to 60.1% in December 2005 with audience share growing to 30.8%. In contrast, year-on-year reach of the terrestrial channels continued to fall.
• ITV1 experienced the greatest single-channel decline in reach of multichannel homes falling 3.6 percentage points during 2005. BBC Two was the only terrestrial channel to increase its reach in multichannel homes over the year with a rise of 1.6 percentage points.
• The BBC channels continued to take the largest share in multichannel homes, with a 30.8% share in December 2005. This compared to 22.6% for the ITV channels, 9.8% for all Sky channels, 8.6% for all Channel 4 channels, 4% for all UKTV channels and 24.3% for all other channels.
• By the end of September 2005, 66% of households (16.5 million) could access digital television.
• Over the six months to 30 September, pay-TV digital satellite households increased by 123,000 (2% growth to 7.5 million).
• Over the six months to 30 September, free-to-view satellite (Sky Freesat) households grew by 100,000 (22% growth to 550,000).
• Over the six months to 30 September, the number of Freeview-only households grew by 14% (716,000 new households) to a total of 5.8 million homes.
• Over the six months to 30 September, digital cable households grew by 101,000 (4% growth to 2.6 million).
• Total television advertising revenues in Q2 and Q3 2005 declined by 1% compared to the same two quarters in 2004. Net advertising revenues were £789 million in Q3 2005.

The full report is available at:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/cm/feb06_report/

Ends.

Back to top