Freesat celebrates one million sales
Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV The free-to-air satellite service, Freesat, has now sold one million set-top boxes and integrated televisions since the service launched in May 2008, including 250,000 over the Christmas and New Year.
Most Freesat boxes are used in homes with existing satellite dishes fitted, and now 30% of all set-top boxes sold in the UK are from Freesat, with 40% using the service to add boxes to a Sky subscription.
Freesat MD Emma Scott says "Hitting 1 million sales is significant milestone for Freesat and gives us a great foundation for further growth, specifically with the millions of UK homes that have HD TVs but no HD service.
Freesat is a great opportunity for the millions of homes with existing satellite dishes who are used to quality TV but no longer want to pay a monthly subscription for it and we continue to see an increasing number of viewers moving across from pay TV."
"Much of what we're now working on is paving the way for next generation free TV with innovations like BBC iPlayer and ITV Player. We will continue to add value to the service by integrating Canvas if approved by the BBC Trust and we are following Ofcom's Pay TV review with interest."
BBC DG Mark Thompson said "The development of Freesat has extended the choices available to viewers in allowing them to receive all of the BBC's digital channels including BBC HD. I'm pleased to see that they have reached this latest landmark, meaning that more people are enjoying quality BBC content."
From ITV plc, interim Chief Executive John Cresswell adds "We're delighted with Freesat's success - a million sales in less than two years is a terrific achievement. Freesat is an important distribution platform for ITV, providing our audiences with next generation free HD services and the capability for further development. We're confident Freesat will continue to go from strength to strength."
11:05 PM
Hi, I've just got a freesat box and dish fitted and often watch five usa in my freeview box. I have seen that this is possibly coming to freesat but does anyone know when yet? or if?
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7:43 PM
my freesat dish moved and i lost my signal reset the dish my receiver dosn't pick up any british stations only foreign ones
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9:07 PM
John Ireland - In moving you've aligned the dish on the wrong satellite. Best to get a local installer align this with a professional meter - not a big job - but you could spend some time trying to correct the alignment without. Pro meters are programmed with satellite positions and the satellite required is straight forward to align.
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9:16 PM
Chris Broadley - Depends on:-
Contractual arrangements with 5 and BSKYB and transpoder availability on Astra 2D and 5's motivation to setup on the "Freesat" platform.
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Conor Mc Dermott: There is due to be another Astra 2 satellite sometime very soon.
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1:35 PM
I have just learned that the company that owns dave uk gold is going to bought over by bbc channel 4 so the people who own freesat might get dave and the yesterday and uk gold on freesat this year and I have learned UTV could be bought over by ITV network this year
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ConorMcDermott: UKTV is a joint venture between the BBC and (now) Virgin Television.
Dave and Yesterday are not on Freesat, as the contract the Sky use to have pay channels in their EPG do not allow them to have a mixture of pay and free channels.
I'm not sure if Channel 4 has the cash to buy out Virgin Television from UKTV.
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Hi Conor,
Do you have links to those stories ?
The last i knew was that scripps network were trying to by virgins part of uktv .
Mark Aberfan Aerials
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Mark Aberfan Aerials: Yes, the last I saw about that was Virgin Media's sale of UKTV stake delayed by ad sales hitch | Media | guardian.co.uk .
This does mention using Channel 4's advertising team for airtime sales being at the heart of the problem.
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3:37 PM
Belfast
virgin are going to sale there 50% share to both channel 4 abd bbc in uktv and sky can,t do any thing to stop that and the channel from uktv go fta or ftv on freview and freesat because virgin need the money for there 3d broadcasting and freesat may also get 3d Q3 off 2012 also because sony are going to show BBC AND ITV how to broadcast in 3d that means 3d football from bbc and itv and movies sky is going to get its ass kicked next year because of youview coming to freeview and freesat from bbc itv c4 c5 bt talk talk phillips and lots more inc youtube and lovefilim and europe are going to force the prem league to go fta for all football fans to watch and ppv sport is goin to be catailed by oft that is what i have herd from my friend in industy
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ConorMcDermott's: mapC's Freeview map terrainC's terrain plot wavesC's frequency data C's Freeview Detailed Coverage