Freeview Stimulates Multichannel Industry

Aggressive marketing of the ITV Digital replacement, Freeview (for a one-off payment consumers can buy a digital box enabling them to receive around 30 extra digital channels free of charge) is proving a considerable boost to the multi-channel industry, according to Continental Research's Winter 2003 Digital TV Report.

Continental Research, which has been tracking the multi-channel TV market for the past 14 years, has found that awareness of the Freeview service (launched in October 2002) has grown dramatically over the past six months. In July 2002, 39% of UK adults were aware of Freeview. Awareness in January 2003 had risen to 58% and is particularly strong amongst men, 65%, compared to women, 51%.

This increase in awareness has also stimulated greater interest to buy into the Freeview service. Last summer 14% of adults living in terrestrial-only homes were interested in the service at a price of £99. This has now risen to over a quarter at 26%.

According to Dave Chilvers, director at Continental Research, 'The figure of 26% of terrestrial homes interested in Freeview equates to a potential market of 3.8 million homes. In addition to the over one million homes which currently have access to Freeview services, a total market potential of around five million at a price of £99 currently exists. Just six months ago, when awareness of Freeview was lower and the service was not even fully defined, market potential was around 3 million at a price of £99 and just over 4 million at £49. This latest estimate shows how the availability and marketing of Freeview has significantly stimulated interest in this market.'

Amongst all adults in Digital TV homes there are good levels of awareness of being able to listen to the radio via digital TV, being able to play games on the games channels and of the pay per view services. Overall three-quarters of adults (73%) living in digital TV homes are aware of one or more facilities available on their digital sets.

To explore usage of online and interactive services digital TV subscribers were asked which services they had personally used in the last 12 months. Some services have shown a considerable increase in popularity since 2001; in particular listening to the radio on the digital TV set has risen from 17% to 27%. Interactive game playing, selecting specific news, sport, or weather reports and voting on TV polls have all also shown significant increases in usage.

Dave Chilvers commented: 'The re-launch of Sky Active and the extension of Sky News Active to eight screens will have been a factor in the increasing use of selecting specific news, sport or weather reports. The option of interactive voting or other participation in a number of TV programmes, ranging from Big Brother to Who Wants to be a Millionaire, has clearly had some impact on the percentages undertaking this activity.The number of digital customers purchasing pay per view films has declined from 23% two years ago to 17% now, perhaps suggesting a drop in popularity of watching films in this way. However, Freeview has no PPV service, whereas two years ago Ondigital had the Onrequest service, so changes in availability may be the main reason for this decline. At present the frequency of using any interactive services by all adults in DTV homes is more experimental than regular. Less than one in ten (7%) currently use an interactive service more than once a week, compared to over half (55%) claiming never to use any interactive services at present.'

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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