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Overview

1.1 In the three months to the end of September 2007 (Q3) there were 361,700 net UK household conversions to digital television (DTV), following 944,200 additions in the previous quarter. The DTT equipment market also had a strong quarter, with almost 2.4 million units sold, while the digital cable and satellite platforms together added almost 170,000 digital households.

1.2 This means that 85.1% of households now receive digital television services on their primary set, up 1.1 percentage points since June 2007.

1.3 With a further 1.0% of households subscribing to analogue cable, the total number of homes receiving multi-channel television at the end of Q3 2007 has risen to 86.1%.

Other key findings

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

• The number of households with digital TV equipment connected to their primary television set stood at almost 21.7 million by the end of the period.
  
• With DTT sales of almost 2.4 million, Q3 was the second highest quarter on record. Year on year Q3 sales were 70% higher, fuelled by the increasing popularity of integrated digital television sets (IDTVs) which sold almost 1.2 million units in Q3 and accounted for just over 50% of all DTT sales. DTT sales over the past year have reached almost 8.6 million, an average of over 2 million per quarter.
  
• New DTT-only households accounted for 57% of all growth in digital TV homes, rising by 193,000 to around 9,332,000 during the quarter.

• We estimate that there are also around 1 million free-to-view digital satellite homes. This means that there are now 10.3 million free-to-view digital households (satellite and DTT combined).
  
• The number of BSkyB subscribers rose by 67,000 to approaching 8.2 million by the end of the quarter. Adding pay satellite to free-to-view satellite homes took the satellite homes total to over 9.1 million at the end of the quarter.
  
• Net cable subscriber numbers rose by 20,400 during the quarter and stood at 3.4 million. Digital cable subscribers increased by over 41,000 and now total nearly 3.2 million, or 93% of all cable subscriptions.

1.5 In calculating platform totals in the report, DTT-only homes are defined as those 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 as a satellite or cable home for the purposes of calculating take-up on primary sets. Figures for all homes with DTT are included in section 3 of the report.

The full document is available below:

• Digital Television Update - 2007 Q3 [pdf]
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