Freesat is "fastest growing TV platform" and "outgrows Pay-TV"

Freesat publish today their 2012/13 results - after five years the service is now in 1.7 million UK homes.

^{Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV 1st May 2013 at 15:52}

Here are the headline figures from Freesat:

• Freesat added c.150,000 homes in the last 12 months, more than both Sky and Virgin Media combined
• This included 29,000 new Freesat homes in latest quarter, Jan-Mar 2013
• 51% of Freesat customers switched from Pay-TV in 2012/13, the majority from Sky
• Freesat now in 1.7 million homes, c.6% of UK homes
• Total unit sales of 3.2 million since launch five years ago
• Gross retail UK sales to date of £1.2 billion with particularly strong sales of the new hybrid free time box.
• Freesat remains the UK’s fastest growing established TV platform, and continues to outgrow Pay-TV rivals.

Freesat say that:

According to Freesat’s own customer research (conducted by YouGov in April 2013), 51% of homes that joined the free TV service in 2012/13 were from Pay-TV rivals. The research also indicated that just over 25% of homes are considering changing TV service provider in 2013, and of these, 60% are being driven by the desire to save money.

Emma Scott, Freesat’s Managing Director commented: "Freesat is truly a TV platform of choice. Our consistently positive results demonstrate fantastic growth and a strong appetite for high quality, good value TV, in a challenging economic environment. The success of our free time service with its cutting edge TV Guide and on-demand services including BBC iPlayer, ITV Player and YouTube, gives yet more sensible reasons to switch to Freesat.

"Everyone of us across the UK is continually reassessing how we spend our money, and with 79% of viewing across all platforms, including pay, going to free channels, and 52% going to the top 5 channels – having a monthly TV subscription just doesn’t make sense for most people."

Freesat has now sold 3.2 million units, far exceeding original sales projections and taking total gross retail UK sales to £1.2 billion since launch in May 2008. Freesat will grow the free time features over time, including a remote record app for smart phones and tablets as well as the introduction of additional movie and music services.





It's worth comparing the figures from Freesat with those from Ofcom (from Digital Television Update Chart Pack for Q4 2012 April 2013).

The Ofcom figures are for only 97.1% of UK, as they don't include the 1.8 million people in Northern Ireland.

Ofcom show 2.1m Free-to-Air satellite homes, which is a combination of Freesat's 1.7 million and 0.4m Freesat-from-Sky homes.