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Overview

1.1 In the three months to the end of June 2007 (Q2 2007) there were 944,000 net UK household conversions to digital television (DTV), following 870,000 additions in the previous quarter.

1.2 This means that 84.0% of households now receive digital television services on their primary set, up 3.5 percentage points since March 2007.

1.3 With a further 1.1% of homes subscribing to analogue cable, the proportion of homes with multi-channel television at the end of Q2 2007 rose to 85.0%.

Other key findings

1.4 Other key findings in the second quarter of 2007 include:

• The number of households with digital TV equipment connected to their main television stood at almost 21.4 million by the end of the period.
• The sale of 1.9 million DTT units in Q2 2007 was the fourth highest quarter on record following on from over 1.9m sales in Q1 2007 and from record sales in Q4 2006 of 2.4m units. Year on year Q2 sales were 52% higher (rising from 1.2m in Q206 and 0.7m in Q205), aided by the growing availability of integrated digital televisions (IDTVs), with sales of over 900,000 in Q2.
• DTT-only households accounted for 81% of the growth in digital TV homes in Q2 2007, rising by 763,000 to around 9.1 million over the quarter.
• Digital terrestrial is now the most commonly used platform on main TV sets, available in 9.1 million homes, followed closely by satellite (free-to-view and pay), which is in 9.0 million homes.
• We estimate that there are also around 945,000 free-to-view digital satellite homes, bringing the total number of free-to-view digital households (including both satellite and terrestrial) to almost 10.1 million.
• The number of BSkyB subscribers also rose by 77,000 to almost 8.1 million by the end of the quarter, taking total satellite homes (including free-to-view) beyond the 9 million mark for the first time.
• Net cable subscriber numbers rose by 6,600 during the quarter, to over 3.4 million. Digital cable subscribers rose by over 44,000, accounting for over 3.1 million or 92% of all cable subscriptions.

1.5 When calculating platform totals in this report, DTT-only homes are defined as those households where DTT is the only digital TV platform in the home. A household with satellite or cable on the main TV set and DTT on a second set is counted primarily as a satellite or cable home. (We assume that there are very few houses with satellite or cable on the second set). Figures for all homes with DTT are included in section 3 of the report.

• Digital Television Update - 2007 Q2 [pdf]
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