According to the always reliable Institute Of Practitioners In Advertising, Freeview will be the biggest provider of digital TV by the end of the year. 27.3% of TV households currently have access to terrestrial digital, while 31.5% have access to satellite, but given the relative growth of the two competing platforms experts say Freeview should overtake satellite later this year.
Given that Freeview is, erm, free (once you've bought your box anyway) while satellite TV generally comes with a monthly subscription fee, those stats are possibly not that surprising. Perhaps more interesting from the IPA's figures is that 33.8% of TV households will still have no digital TV which, as the trade body points out, is perhaps a little worrying given that the government is hoping to start turning off terrestrial signals in two years time.
IPA chairman Jim Marshall: "With around two years until the start of analogue switch off, it's worrying that still a third of UK homes have chosen not to 'go digital'. This could represent a serious challenge to the government's plans for analogue switch off."