80% of British homes have digital TV So that switchover thing won't be so tough, surely?

22 June 2007 14:10 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

More than 80% of UK homes now have digital television on the main set according to research published by Ofcom.

Ofcom’s Digital Television Progress Report for the first quarter of 2007 shows that household with take-up of digital television now stands at 80.5% (which is around 20.4m homes) up from 77.2% the previous quarter.

The report also shows that Freeview is now on the main set in 8.4 million homes (up from 7.7m in the previous quarter), and has now overtaken the number of Sky subscribers in the UK (8.0m in the first quarter of 2007, which is also sees a rise).

In total, 1.96 million Freeview devices (either boxes or TV with intergrated tuners) were sold during the quarter, a 61% rise year-on-year for the same period in 2006.

This was the highest first quarter for Freeview sales ever.

It would appear that the message is getting out to the British public about the need to ensure their digital TV connectivity before the big analogue signal switch off.

A recent YouGov.com survey previously suggested that most Britons didn't get the whole digital telly concept and that we were to be practically smothered under a mountain of consumer electronics discarded by thickies not grasping that they could just get sorted for the switchover with a set top box.