By 30 June 2003 multichannel and digital TV penetration are estimated to have increased to 49.8 per cent and 45.5 per cent of UK households respectively, according to the ITC's latest Multichannel Quarterly published today.
 
Digital penetration increased by 1.6 per cent points over the last quarter (April - June 2003), which was attributable to the following key developments:

* The growth of DTT has continued, reaching an estimated 1.8m households at the end of the quarter.

* Sky added 126,000 subscribers during the quarter, giving a total of 6.6m UK households.

* Cable also contributed to the growth in digital penetration by adding over 38,000 digital subscribers bringing the total number of digital cable homes to 2.2m.

According to an official release, the ITC's Multichannel Quarterly reports every three months on the take-up of both analogue and digital multichannel television in the UK. As far as possible, the data in this report is based upon the latest figures provided by the platform operators. However, it is also necessary to rely on some estimated figures. For free-to-air penetration for example, data from third party sources and the ITC's own view of the market has been used to compile this report.

At present, this report does not take into consideration platform overlap. In other words, all households are considered to be discrete multichannel units. However, the ITC is currently working on a methodology to report more accurately on multi-platform households.