Freeview, the digital terrestrial television service, is expected to have been adopted by two million homes in the UK by the time it celebrates its first birthday at the end of next month.
The free-to-air platform, which replaced the beleaguered ITV Digital last October, has been warmly received by consumer and it is believed to be the fastest selling consumer technology to have reached one million households.
The BBC’s marketing and commercial director, Andy Duncan, who was responsible for Freeview’s launch, told The Times: “It has gone better than anyone, myself included, predicted.”
It is understood that sales of the basic receivers, which have fallen in price to around £79, are still running at the rate of 100,000 a month. Estimates suggest there could be 4 million Freeview homes by the end of next year, a figure which could prompt commercial broadcasters to consider launching new advertiser funded channels on the digital terrestrial platform.
Channel 4 is already understood to have approved plans to launch a new free to air television channel targeting older viewers. The provisionally titled More 4 looks set to launch on Freeview sometime at the end of next year as a mixed genre offering aimed at 35 to 50 year-olds.
Recent research suggests that Freeview is helping to convince large numbers of refuseniks to join the digital revolution. However, it has been claimed the digital terrestrial service is failing to market itself as a commercial platform.
Analysts at Merrill Lynch claim the success of Freeview should not impact too heavily on BSkyB’s pay-TV satellite business, as the demographic profiles of the customers of the two platforms are notably different (see Freeview Success Should Not Hurt Sky, Says Merrill Lynch).
Freeview currently attracts a significantly older customer profile than Sky, with almost three quarters of the platform’s buyers aged 35 or over. In contrast, Sky brings in a much younger demographic profile, peaking in the 18-34 category.
