Ofcom dismisses 44% of Freeview

Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV 17th March 2006 at 12:27

Ofcom does some very strange mathematics to announce that Sky is the current winner in the digital television war.

Sky has 7,666,000 UK subscribers compared to the 10,805,600 digital terrestrial boxes that have been sold.

Ofcom first removes the 250,000 boxes that were sold as "ONdigital" (Ofcom must have missed the change of name to ITV Digital) from the Freeview figures, which must be odd for those people who watch the Freeview services using their old boxes.

3.2 million DTT boxes are dismissed as "second sets" by Ofcom, making any home with both Sky and Freeview (or Freesat and Freeview, or cable and Freeview) into a "Sky home".

A million more (yes, a million) are removed by Ofcom as "Inactive".

So, even though there are 3.2 million MORE DTT boxes, Ofcom counts them as being 1.6 million LESS than Sky.

Also excluded from the figures are those for Top-up TV and (incredibly) Freesat from Sky!

But even with this fiddle, Freeview will pass Sky in three months time.

Or do you have a million Freeview boxes? Would you be happy to hand them over so save the BBC licence fee going up?

Digital Progress Report - DTV Q4 2005