Freeview now in 3.5 million Homes

3rd June 2004

According to new toothless regulator Ofcom, the number of homes that have Freeview increased by 18.6% to 3.5 million homes in the first 3 months of 2004. This goes against a research group's predictions published in November last year that predicted that Freeview would be in 2.4 million homes by the end of 2003 (it was actually in almost 3 million homes at the end of last year), and the new figures have even beaten the research group's predictions that Freeview would be in 3.44 million homes by the end of 2005.

If sales carry on at this rate (0.5 million in 3 months) then Freeview would be in about 5 million homes by the end of 2004, and with Sky's subscriber numbers looking very flat (there are just under 7 million Sky subscribers) Freeview could overtake Sky in terms of market share within the next few years, and is likely to be significantly ahead of Sky when analogue TV is turned off. Analogue switch-off is supposedly being phased-in for certain regions starting in 2006 culminating in total switch-off in 2010, but at the moment all you seem to read is that Ofcom want the Government to take some decisive action about setting some dates and the BBC saying similar things, yet Tessa Jowell is happily plodding along with her head in the clouds making extremely important public statements about Big Brother...