Freeview pips Sky as top multi-channel source

Freeview launched in October 2002 and now offers 43 channels

Freeview has overtaken Sky Digital as the UK's main source of multi-channel TV. 

The digital terrestrial service is now used in 11 million UK homes, Freeview claimed today.

This compares with 8.4 million Sky Digital homes in the UK and Ireland, and five million customers for digital cable provider Virgin Media, formerly NTL/Telewest. 

Freeview has also launched a hard disk video recorder, the Freeview Playback PVR, which includes an integrated Freeview tuner and is expected to retail for £170 from next month.

The launch represents a challenge to Sky's dominant Sky+ PVR, which is now in two million households. 

Cary Wakefield, general manager of Freeview, claimed that Playback PVR will become the UK's preferred choice of digital TV recorder, with an uptake of "at least 10 million" by the digital switchover in 2012.

"Playback PVR is the next chapter of the Freeview story. We will be very surprised if Freeview Playback does not feature in the top 10 Christmas gifts," he said.

Freeview claimed to have sold about 1.7 million integrated TV sets and set-top boxes in the first quarter of 2007.

A company spokesperson told vnunet.com that Freeview's supremacy in the digital TV market, along with the continued buoyancy of Sky and Virgin Media, proved that the market has "plenty of space for many different providers".

Freeview launched in October 2002 to offer digital TV and radio via an aerial for a one-off initial fee.

The service now offers 43 channels including Film4, E4, Sky News and CBeebies. The company is jointly managed by the BBC, BSkyB, Channel 4, ITV and National Grid Wireless.

Sky saw its biggest growth for six years in the final quarter of 2006, and has pledged to attract 10 million subscribers by 2010.